Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton went after a talking head who went after Bo Nix this week, and hilarity ensued.
Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton had himself a moment this week when he was perusing the media commentary about quarterback Bo Nix, and for some reason Payton decided to fire back at FS1 talking head Geoff Schwartz, who offered some recycled takes on Nix’s progress and whether he can take a step forward or backward this season.
Payton tried to explain this in the aftermath, as he sheepishly admitted that he went a little off the rails in a report from Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk.
“That was crazy wasn’t it?” Payton told reporters. “I can’t help myself though. When I see something like that, I’m sorry, it’s just, I have a pause and then it’s like, ‘What are you watching?’
“Just watch the tape. Here’s the thing though. I think — and this is for any player — sometimes when you’re on the East Coast, you don’t see, whatever, but when you get to see. . . . I remember the first time I ever saw a Percy Harvin or Adrian Peterson, it was completely different than — so to see someone live and to actually watch them is. . . .”
Payton is hedging and backtracking here for all he’s worth here, and after that he tried to twist his way out of his misstep with a broad critique of the media that’s probably also mostly true.
“Getting back to your question relative to — they’re just — you guys grind at it, but now you have so many variations. You’ve got the basement podcast with the beer logo and I just couldn’t help myself with that one. It was silly. Everything was the opposite of what he was saying and the worst part was he played at Oregon. I don’t even know the player, so.”
Payton now has more important things to do, as the Broncos have released a list of the first 11 players, which surprisingly included fullback Adam Prentice, although he’s probably not really leaving. The Broncos returned to form on Friday night with a 34-6 thumping of the Minnesota Vikings in their final preseason game, so he’s a reasonably happy camper at the moment.
That doesn’t mean the attacks will stop, however. As Payton himself noted, he can’t help himself sometimes, and the Broncos will have two weeks of media noise to handle between today’s roster cutdowns and the season opener on Sept. 14 against the Kansas City Chiefs on Monday Night Football. That means there’s ample reason to stay tuned, as always.
