From the mean streets of Philadelphia, all the way to the sleepy hollow of Waltham Abbey in Essex, England, the championship ambitions of the Denver Broncos are well travelled already.
After a very business-like visit to the City of Brotherly love, the 3-2 Broncos have chosen a more relaxed backdrop before facing the winless New York Jets at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
As the Broncos pushed their way into elite company by defeating the Super Bowl Champion Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday, distractions abroad won’t be tolerated by head coach Sean Payton.
“It’s going to be exactly like a practice week. Exactly,” Payton said on Sunday. “You want the schedule? We’re staying in the middle of nowhere, no sightseeing. Honestly, fair question. So, we get in Monday. Tomorrow morning we will run, lift out, watch the tape. They’re off Tuesday. We’ve got this schedule down pat. Wednesday will be Day 1, Thursday third down. So that’s the reason for going over.”
Last season, the boot-camp approach of keeping the team together worked wonders when the Broncos opted to stay out on the East Coast to beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and Jets back-to-back in Weeks 3 and 4, respectively. Payton is aware of the temptation that boredom in a big, vibrant city can bring, so he’s keeping his team focused on the job at hand.
“There’s two other times we’ve gone on this trip,” Payton explained. “Once, [former Saints TE Jeremy] Shockey tried to get all the passports and take the team to Amsterdam. So we put the kibosh on that. We played the Chargers I think one year, ’07, ’08. And then we played the Dolphins in ’17 or ’18. The guys will have some dinner, I’m sure. It’s a normal work week, but we’re a ways out.”
Amid the euphoria of the Broncos’ statement win over the Eagles, it felt like, deep down, Payton’s squad always believed it belonged in elite company. The Broncos have more winnable games on this next stretch of the schedule, but Payton could be asking things of his team with more confidence than ever before.
The last thing Payton wants is to get complacent and fly all the way to London only to get caught sleeping by the winless Jets. Furthermore, Payton knew that looking beyond a formidable opponent like the Jets could have hampered the Broncos’ chances to pull out a memorable win.
The NFL viewed Broncos-Eagles as a litmus test of sorts. It turns out that Payton did, too.
“I think you always get a chance to see where you’re at,” Payton said about beating the Eagles. “And we talked a lot about it. One of the challenges is playing this game before you go to London. You guys have heard me say it, the away teams before London, it’s not real good. So, it wasn’t in itineraries. There was not one thing about the L word, nothing.
“I said something about bringing an extra bag Friday and that’s it, and then we’ll figure it out. Because it’s very easy to get caught up in, if you’re not careful, the next week and the focus needed to be on today. And then you’re coming off a Monday night. There were a lot of reasons you could say you weren’t going to be successful, but our guys did a good job of preparing and I think the locker room prior to today felt like this was going to be the result. I mean I’ve done this long enough, I’ve got pretty good instincts as a coach. You’re waiting to see.”
With the AFC West suddenly careening back into Denver’s favor, the last thing Payton plans on doing is handing it back to the Los Angeles Chargers or Kansas City Chiefs on a silver platter.
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