The Denver Broncos are 10-2, and that’s not a surprise considering the approach and preparation the team gets from head coach Sean Payton and quarterback Bo Nix.
For Payton, being a leader who sets the standard of being detail-oriented in everything he and his coaching staff do is the reason why they are one of the NFL’s best teams right now.
Payton hates the term ‘the hay is in the barn’ because that signifies the work and preparation are done. If there’s a small detail that helps the team find an advantage, no matter what day or time of the week, Payton will turn over every stone to incorporate it.
“I just think I hate losing more than anything in the world,” Payton said. “I think fear of failure is a very significant motivating factor. I think from a details standpoint, there’s nothing that’s too small that’s not significant. That has to exist outside the lines as well. The entry way, the locker room, the signage, postgame. In everything we do, there’s been thought given to all of it. Almost maniacal with the details. I just think that eventually the feeling of the player feeling like, ‘They’ve thought of everything.’”
Those details, small or significant, matter to Payton, and that’s why the culture in Denver has shifted so quickly in his first two seasons, now carrying over into a strong start in his third year leading the team. For him, he has his quarterback, and Nix has the same process of being detail-oriented.
“Thank goodness for me, I feel like all of my head coaches have been pretty detail-oriented,” Nix said. “That’s why they have gotten to where they were. [Head] Coach [Sean Payton is] very detailed, very specific in what he wants, so it honestly makes it a little easier playing for him because you know what he wants, he’s going to explain it to you. As a player you just have to do what he’s asking of you. If you mess up, he’s just going to run it again. Nothing to it. Just do it again, and do it again and feel it out. Make sure you do it right and then we’ll move onto the next one. It’s a really important thing I think for the details to be important, and if the details are important, no matter big or small, you’re going to have a good, detailed team.”
The fear of failure is something that drives both Nix and Payton. Anybody who has been a former athlete or coach understands the desire to win and succeed. Failure is scary — it comes with extreme pressure, and often, the fear of failure can be paralyzing.
Talking to players in the locker room on Wednesday, the one phrase I kept hearing from them was that they don’t blink or flinch when the pressure is on. They know what it’s like to be on the receiving end of one-score losses or coming up short — for many of the players that were on the roster last season, that playoff loss to the Buffalo Bills is something that still motivates them. It left a nasty taste in their mouths.
“I think what I’ve learned with him is he probably is one of those guys that hates losing more than he likes winning,” Nix said of Sean Payton. “I think that’s more of the common theme that we have. We’re very competitive. We don’t like losing, and we’re going to do everything we can to win. Because of that you’re going to get that competitiveness, you’re going to get that drive, you’re going to get the details, you’re going to get the little things all to not avoid the loss and pick up a win no matter what it looks like.”
Whether it’s by one point or twenty, winning is the only thing that matters to the players in the locker room, and that has been the paradigm shift inside the Broncos culture, and Payton has spearheaded the process the moment he stepped into the building.
Now, the players lead with the same mentality, and we’re seeing it with the on-field success Denver is having.