INDIANAPOLIS — Sean Payton stepped to a microphone and answered the biggest question in Broncos Country.
Yes, he’s handing primary play-calling responsibility to newly promoted offensive coordinator Davis Webb.
Yes, Payton will still be involved. Yes, this is a major change. Yes, he wonders if his hands will feel empty after he’s carried the playsheet for so many years.
Yes, yes and yes.
Going into his Tuesday evening news conference at the NFL Combine, those who know Payton best were split on whether they thought he’d actually make the move, let alone acknowledge it in a straightforward, public way.
But there he was, upright after a nasty bout of food poisoning, laying out why he had confidence in Webb. He didn’t bristle at the questions or obfuscate. It probably wasn’t easy for the veteran coach to arrive at this point, but he acknowledged that sometimes the world doesn’t operate on your preferred timeline.
This is what’s best for the Broncos, Payton decided. This gives Denver the best chance of winning a Super Bowl.
As the dust settles and the league’s 32 teams decamp for their home bases around the country, one major matter is settled.
Now, another will dominate the rest of what is already a fascinating offseason for the Broncos: Just how much will Denver’s offense change with Webb at the controls?
There is no indication that the Broncos are in for wholesale changes. In fact, general manager George Paton downplayed the impact in that regard.
“It’s still going to be the same scheme,” Paton told KOA radio after his news conference Tuesday. “We’ve been with Davis three years. It’s not like he’s coming from another team. We know what we’re looking for as a team. Position standards, prototype, what we’re looking for at offensive line and receiver. We kind of know. That’s not going to change much.
“There may be a tweak here or there, but it’s Sean’s offense, really. They’re putting it together.”
Big shoes to fill
It’s possible the Broncos really won’t change much, but the ins and outs between game days set up to be at least somewhat different.
If Webb is the coordinator and the primary playcaller, logic would suggest he will also lead the offensive gameplanning process. Payton will be squarely involved and this part of the operation is always collaborative, but it’s hard to imagine the head coach will be dictating exactly how to structure all the personnel groupings and substitution patterns or how to run the meetings or what, ultimately, the go-to early third-down call is.
At the very least, Payton would have wanted the autonomy to make those kinds of decisions when he was an ascending coach under Jim Fassel and Bill Parcells.
“I can recall being in that situation,” Payton said of Webb’s new station.
Payton, of course, did not always agree with his bosses. Nobody does. Webb won’t either. Payton’s own rise put him on both sides of the coin — he’s been in Webb’s shoes and he now is in Parcells’.
“(Parcells) would always be — he would say, ‘Why are you doing that?’” Payton recalled. “I don’t care if I was doing the opposite, he would always challenge your thought in a good way.”
Payton undoubtedly will do the same.
Will Webb, even within the same general schematics, want to shake up the pie chart? Will he want to tilt the run game more heavily toward the Shanahan-style outside zone game? Or lean into power and duo? The Broncos struggled to run the ball this fall without J.K. Dobbins, to be sure, but they also have struggled to find a true identity in the Payton era.
Will Webb be free to mine for one in different ground? Perhaps he’ll see Marvin Mims Jr. as a major contributor rather than the 50-target, 35% play time player he’s been his first three years in Denver. Or maybe he’ll want a slightly different style runner, want quarterback Bo Nix in the zone read game more frequently or want to deploy more pre-snap motion and fewer personnel groupings.
Major departures would be a surprise. After all, Webb and Payton have been together for three seasons and have crafted their plan for Nix’s entry into the NFL together.
If Webb has strong feelings on who the final receiver on the roster should be or how to decide between closely graded tight ends in the middle rounds of the draft, what will Payton do?
To be clear, these are still Payton’s decisions. It’s his team. He and Paton run the draft and are responsible for assembling a 53-man roster and a practice squad come August.
But will Payton make those decisions exactly as he always has? Or will he give some deference to Webb’s preferences?
Again, there’s no reason to think these men will have massive gulfs between them on any or many issues. But there are 100s of decisions to make in any category: Roster, scheme, structure, approach, installation, on and on. The answers cannot possibly be the same for all of them.
So, the big question is answered.
A new era in Payton’s head coaching career has arrived.
Now, what’s it going to look like?
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