In a spontaneous moment filmed from the concourse at Lucas Oil Stadium, where the league is currently hosting the NFL combine, McAfee asked for a quick “two minutes” of Payton’s time to answer some questions about the Broncos<\/a> and the direction the team is heading.<\/p>\n What transpired in the 17-minute interview was a glimpse into the mind of Payton, who is going into his fourth season at the helm in Denver. When asked about the goings-on at the combine, Payton expressed excitement about where Denver is trending.<\/p>\n “We’re in a much better position cap-wise now,” Payton said. “You kind of approach it like, ‘OK, we’re going to play young players.’ You guys have seen this long enough now; young and naive can be dangerous sometimes, and when you have one of those teams, and they get this type of experience, last year first round of the playoffs, this year, you go into the second to last weekend, you get excited about coming back and looking at another draft class now.”<\/p>\n After talking about the injury to quarterback Bo Nix, and the relative health of the Broncos<\/a> in 2024 and 2025, Payton was asked about his decision to give up play-calling to offensive coordinator Davis Webb. Payton said it wasn’t the first time he’d given up the reins to the play sheet, recalling a game where he broke his toe in 2011, leading to surgery on the subsequent Monday.<\/p>\n Need a news break? Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n Payton was not able to be in meetings most of the week, and then-Saints offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael would call the game against the Indianapolis Colts on Sunday Night Football the next week. McAfee told his perspective of the week leading up to the game as the scout team quarterback for the Colts.<\/p>\n “I was scouting quarterback against our defense,” said McAfee. “And boy, if I look left, and then to the right, tight end was wide open. I threw for 50 touchdowns that week maybe, with your offense, and then you guys did the same.”<\/p>\n In the game, where the Colts were minus Peyton Manning, Payton took the story back to the Saints’ perspective. “We’re playing Sunday night,” Payton recalled. “I’m in the press box and Pete’s calling the game, and we win 63 to something<\/a>. I said to Pete, ‘You are killing me,’ you know, I’m getting ready to do a new contract. I’m up in the press box, we score record total points in the history of the Saints organization. Anyway, I got pissed at (Sunday Night Football executive producer) Fred Gaudelli ‘cuz I had a dip in, and they put the camera, and I got busted with the dip in.”<\/p>\n Later in the interview, Payton went over his philosophy for spring ramp-ups and a host of other topics. Payton also revealed the team’s new training facility<\/a> is three months away from opening, just in time for the start of training camp.<\/p>\n Check out the full interview below:<\/p>\n The NFL combine continues through March 1.<\/p>\n Social: Follow\u00a0Broncos Wire<\/a>\u00a0on\u00a0Facebook<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Twitter\/X<\/a>!\u00a0Did you know:\u00a0These 25 celebrities are Broncos fans<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb. 26, 2026, 4:26 p.m. MT In a man-on-the-street type interview on Thursday from Pat McAfee on The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":682056,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2062],"tags":[95878,232,231,258,2426,7,6,95879,95880,95882,97108,95896,95888,95899,99231,95884,95883,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-779537","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-denver-broncos","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-broncos","10":"tag-denver","11":"tag-denver-broncos","12":"tag-denverbroncos","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-sstssportsnflbroncos","16":"tag-sstsnbroncos","17":"tag-tagamerican-football","18":"tag-tagbo-nix","19":"tag-tagnational-sports","20":"tag-tagnfl","21":"tag-tagoverall-neutral","22":"tag-tagpat-mcafee","23":"tag-tagsports-coaching-training","24":"tag-tagsports-news","25":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116141835525123692","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=779537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/682056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i.ytimg.com\/vi\/AUEusP-1Y6I\/maxresdefault.jpg\")