Feb. 15, 2026, 6:00 a.m. MT
Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton enjoys seeing his assistant coaches getting opportunities to advance their careers, but he does have one complaint about the NFL’s current hiring process.
NFL clubs that miss the playoffs and fire their coaches are allowed to interview head coach candidates from teams that are participating in the postseason. The Broncos had several assistant coaches interview for head coach openings during the playoffs, including Vance Joseph, Davis Webb and Darren Rizzi.
“It’s part of the deal,” Payton said during his end-of-season press conference last month. “You’re supportive. Here’s the difficult part. The difficult part is sitting on that competition committee staff, and what’s difficult is when it’s taking place while you’re still playing.
“I think our guys have done a good job handling that, but it’s still difficult because preparing for one of those interviews requires time, like quite a bit of time. Then preparing for an opponent in the playoffs requires every waking minute. I don’t know that I have the solution, but I think it’s a challenge that we battle as a league.”
One solution would be to not allow interviews until after the Super Bowl, but that would slow teams down as they build coaching staffs and look to jump right into the NFL offseason. For now, it does not appear that any change is imminent.
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