On Thursday at Radio Row in Phoenix Arizona for Super Bowl 57, Mile High Sports caught up with former Denver Broncos great Emmanuel Sanders. Sanders reflected on the 7th anniversary of the team’s Super Bowl 50 win against the Carolina Panthers and the Broncos’ hiring of Sean Payton as their next head coach.
Emmanuel Sanders reflects on Super Bowl 50 seven years after the fact
Seven years have passed since the Broncos knocked off the red-hot Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl 50 24-10. Sanders shared his thoughts on the Hollywood-like ending to an amazing season and how the bond shared between that specific Broncos team is something he holds dear to this day.
“We went to Ronnie Hillman’s funeral,” Sanders said. “Me, Peyton Manning, Derek Wolfe, Ryan Harris, a lot of us — we were going out to LA to say goodbye to our brother, but just being on that plane with everyone, we all realized, ‘we’ve got to get together a lot more.’ Derek actually sent the text message to the group saying, ‘let’s not always have to always get together in the rough times and the bad times, but let’s stick together through the good times as well.”
Super Bowl 50 will forever tie members of that specific team together. The tragic loss of Demaryius Thomas and Hillman further put into perspective how important football brotherhood is.
As the years have passed and time moves forward, Sanders looks back on his career in the NFL, particularly that Super Bowl 50 year.
“When I saw that seven years ago Super Bowl, I was like, ‘that doesn’t seem like seven years ago, these times are starting to stack up a bit,” Sanders reflected. “I did an appearance the other day and a guy walks up to me and said, ‘you used to be my favorite player,’ and I responded,’ I used-to-be,?’ I’m turning into one of them — I’m retired, I’m a used-to-be. And then he showed me a picture from when he was a little kid at training camp, and now he’s in high school. These times go by fast — you just have to appreciate them.”
Coming into the game, the Broncos were the underdogs against Cam Newton and company. Sanders knew the magnitude of that game — in particular, the reality that it was likely Peyton Manning’s last game.
“I remember going into that game, I was the first one on the field,” Sanders said. “I had lost in 2010 versus the [Pittsburgh] Steelers.” The story would be entirely different for the electrifying Broncos receiver in 2015. He led the Broncos with six receptions for 83 yards and helped move the chains in key moments that helped aid Denver to their third Super Bowl.
Sanders revisited the night before Denver played Carolina. Demarcus Ware brought the Lombardi Trophy into the team meeting room as he and Peyton Manning delivered emotional, fiery speeches — speeches that will never likely leave that room. Seven years later, still Super Bowl 50 champions.
Emmanuel Sanders believes Sean Payton will change the culture
After spending one season with the New Orleans Saints, Emmanuel Sanders shared his thoughts on what Sean Payton will bring to the Denver Broncos. For the former Broncos wide receiver who still lives in Denver and now excels in his role on NFL Network as part of their NFL Gameday Morning crew — Payton was the coach he wanted the Broncos to hire during this initial process.
“Sean Payton was the coach I wanted the Broncos to get,” Sanders told Mile High Sports. “I can tell you multiple stories, Sean Payton put an extra $500k in my pocket. I remember entering Week 16 and I needed eight catches for my incentives to kick in. He walks up to me and goes, ‘those eight catches versus the [Carolina] Panthers, I’m going to get you those eight catches.’ I remember making that eighth catch and looking over to him and started making the money sign. He did me a solid and ended up signing the script that he used to get me that $500,000. I posted a video on Instagram of him griddying in the locker room. He has this thing called ‘Club Dub’ and everywhere we travel he’ll bring this speaker system in. If we won you’ll hear it in the next locker room and he’s got these lights like you’re in the club. Just the environment and the entire way he’s going to shift the culture of the Broncos, it’s going to be different. It’s crazy what’s going on in Colorado because you’ve got the Buffs and you’ve got Deion [Sanders] as a coach. You see how he’s shifting the culture of the Buffs, that’s kind of Sean Payton too. He’s going to shift the culture of the Broncos.”
A culture shift is important for a Denver Broncos team that hasn’t found a way to win games. The former standout receiver and NFL believes Payton’s style of coaching will benefit Denver and transform that culture.
“He’s coming from New Orleans, but he’s also one of those guys,” Sanders expanded. “He has a certain swagger that he likes, how he was talking about in the presser in terms of details. He pays attention to the details and he’s going to bring an older mindset, but also a younger mindset too because he’s going to be relatable to the players. I think that was an incredible hire and I feel like the Broncos got a coach who can potentially be a hall-of-famer someday. We’ve been waiting on a quarterback, waiting on a quarterback, waiting on a quarterback but we’ve also been waiting on a head coach of this caliber too — somebody who is going to be consistent and is going to win games, someone that you know is going to be ahead of the opposing team’s defensive coordinator and I’ve seen that with Sean Payton time and time again.”
As everybody awaits the on-field results under Payton, the general vibe amongst everyone at radio row is that the Denver Broncos got the best guy for the job.
