The head man smelled blood.
Dallas came to Empower Field on Sunday afternoon wielding some of the best weapons in the game, but riddled with holes from weapons they couldn’t stop.
This would be an old-fashioned mountain shootout between the Broncos and the Cowboys, the latter a franchise ranked dead-last in the NFL in total defense.
“We wanted,” Sean Payton reflected later Sunday, “to keep them last.”
On Saturday night, in the kind of film-review meeting that normally glazes eyes, Payton introduced a semi-surprise. Joe Harrington, the Broncos’ director of football video, stitched together tape of 11 plays they’d repped throughout the week that Payton felt could go for touchdowns. And Harrington, at Payton’s behest, overlayed the college fight song of the scoring recipient on each play.
Payton went around throughout the week asking players the names of those fight songs. Tight end Adam Trautman was accompanied by Dayton’s “We know we’ll make your team feel blue!” Rookie Pat Bryant heard Illinois’ famed “Oskee Wow-Wow.” Second-year Oregon product Troy Franklin got the Ducks’ “Go! Ducks! Go.” Players heard that song about five times, tight end Evan Engram cracked, a dead giveaway Franklin was due for a big game.
Bryant’s eyes lit up when discussing the meeting. Franklin smiled that all the flair was “pretty funny.” Veteran receiver Trent Sherfield, who has played for six NFL franchises and seven head coaches, put it best.
“It’s Sean, bro,” the 29-year-old told The Denver Post. “Like, he has a lot of tricks up his sleeve.”
Payton whipped them all out a day later, throwing every grain of magic dust he had at the Cowboys in a 44-24 win that steadied concerns about the Broncos’ offensive inconsistency.
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After Bo Nix attacked the sidelines and middle of the field in a four-touchdown performance, and J.K. Dobbins stayed in rhythm in a 15-carry, 111-yard performance, Payton made one thing clear postgame: He didn’t think Dallas’ defense could keep up.
Thus, the head coach recounted, he started to goad on his defense through four smashmouth quarters: Can you guys keep up with us?
“He’s our head football coach,” Engram said postgame after he was asked if he felt urgency from Payton throughout the week. “I think after the three quarters we had last week, you’re gon’ feel some pressure.”
This was Payton at his best, a roaring flame for four quarters after weeks of flickers. This is the essence of a head coach who’s long operated with a distinct swagger, as former New Orleans players describe, and the teachings of mentor Bill Parcells. There are multitudes of ways to win a game, Parcells taught him. In Dallas, Parcells often tried to cut plays from his ambitious coordinator’s play-sheet — only to turn around before one anticipated shootout against the Chiefs and tell Payton to throw the kitchen sink at Kansas City.
Twenty years later, this was a kitchen-sink game. Payton knew it. His players sensed it. The fight-song tape, on Saturday night, was evidence.
“We ran just about all the ones we went over,” Bryant said. “So I mean, just going out there and just seeing the execution – man, just knowing we did what we needed to do to catch that dub was special.”
The Broncos have been stop-and-go offensively because of Payton’s inconsistent commitment to the run game and an emphasis on short dunks early in games. They have also been stop-and-go offensively because of a lack of execution in various phases — blocking, penalties and organization.
There was less of that on Sunday. There were still a handful of ineligible-man-downfield and offensive-pass-interference whistles. But they weren’t drive-killers. There was no visible confusion, and no offensive timeouts to review a play. This was a machine that’s now racked up 77 points and 721 total yards of offense in its last five quarters.
“Everybody got to really see the offense that we can be,” Sherfield said. “And I think we all experienced it as well, too.”
Denver’s skill players noticed a “difference of play-calling” for Payton, Franklin said Sunday.
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The Broncos went three-and-out on their opening drives for five straight weeks, and Nix threw three straight incompletions to open last weekend’s game against the Giants.
Payton came out on Sunday in a smashmouth run package with Sherfield, Trautman and Bryant, handed the ball to Dobbins for 7 yards on the first play, and kept riding the two-back duo of Dobbins and RJ Harvey on early downs.
As Dobbins and Harvey got going — a combined 157 yards on 22 carries — a weak Cowboys secondary opened up for Payton and Nix, who connected on three deep balls to Franklin, Bryant and later Courtland Sutton. Nix entered Week 8 with just six such completions of throws longer than 20 yards.
“I just think he got a couple more passes in there for us,” Franklin said of Payton’s play-calling. “Just kind of evened up the run and pass calls.”
Payton’s approach found a balance between ruthless precision and trickery. Harvey had a direct-snap Wildcat touchdown in the second quarter on a play Payton’s had in rotation “for like five weeks.” And Franklin’s second TD grab of the game, in the fourth quarter, came on a play where the Broncos wanted to target Franklin’s matchup — former fellow Duck Trikweze Bridgers.
“That’s part of the game,” Payton said.
Payton did not want to beat Dallas. He wanted to bury them. He called five straight passes against a reeling Cowboys defense with eight minutes left, resulting in Nix’s fourth TD on a short flick to Harvey. Payton called a go-route for Engram while up 37-17 with seven minutes to play.
And his locker room felt his offense click in a way it hadn’t shown yet this season.
“That’s going to help us going forward to point to this game and – ‘Hey, this is how we need to play,'” Sherfield said. “‘No matter who’s out there.’”
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