The Denver Broncos had Super Bowl aspirations when they traded for franchise quarterback Russell Wilson last season.
Instead, the Broncos finished an embarrassing 5-12, which put them in the basement of the vaunted AFC West.
The Broncos fired then-head coach Nathaniel Hackett and replaced him with a proven commodity in former Super Bowl champion coach Sean Payton.
Now firmly settled into his new digs, Payton didn’t mince words when it came to the cause of last season’s pitiful performance. Including what management allowed from Wilson.
“There’s 20 dirty hands, for what was allowed, tolerated in the fricking training rooms, the meeting rooms,” Payton told Jarrett Bell of USA Today in reference to the former regime allowing Wilson’s entourage unfettered access to team facilities.
“The offense. I don’t know Hackett. A lot of people had dirt on their hands. It wasn’t just Russell [Wilson]. He didn’t just flip. He still has it. This B.S. that he hit a wall? Shoot, they couldn’t get a play in. They were 29th in the league in pre-snap penalties on both sides of the ball.”
Payton didn’t spare his predecessor, either.
“It might have been one of the worst coaching jobs in the history of the NFL,”Payton told Bell. “That’s how bad it was.”
The Broncos season doesn’t begin for over a month, but it’s hard to envision a similar performance under a coach like Payton.
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