Following their 16-14 loss to the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday, Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton created a montage of other heartbreaking losses he has experienced and he presented it to the team’s players this week.
The first clip was from the 1991 college football season when Payton was a running backs and wide receivers coach at Indiana State. The Sycamores scored late in the game to take a 25-24 lead over Kansas State.
“We went for the two-point play, threw an interception in the middle of the end zone and the Kansas State player took it back 107 yards,” Payton recalled this week.
That sealed a 26-25 loss.
Down 1 point after a late Indiana State touchdown, William Price intercepts the two point conversion and takes it all the way for a game winning score
1991 pic.twitter.com/UvtJAIHOek— The Kansas State Fan (@Thekstatefan) July 3, 2024
The next clip was from Payton’s first season in the NFL when he was a quarterbacks coach with the Philadelphia Eagles in 1997. Trailing the Dallas Cowboys by one point on Monday Night Football, the Eagles drove down the field to set up what could have been a game-winning field goal. Philly’s holder, punter Tommy Hutton, mishandled the snap and the Eagles lost 21-20.
After that, Payton showed the play when former Broncos safety Justin Simmons blocked a New Orleans Saints extra point attempt and Will Parks ran it back for a two-point score to secure a 25-23 win for Denver.
Next up in the montage was the “Minneapolis Miracle” from when the Minnesota Vikings knocked the Saints out of the 2017 playoffs.
After that, the video showed New Orleans losing to the Los Angeles Rams in the 2018 NFL playoffs after an egregious no call.
“The point of the film, I said to them, ‘I don’t have enough time here to show you all the good clips,'” Payton recalled. “‘Just like in life, we’re going to have some [moments] and then we get up and we start fighting again.’ There was just a message behind that. Every one of us here has that film in some way, shape or form, whether it’s personally [or] occupationally. So I think the response — and look the team we’re playing is coming off of a tough loss.
“You hope that when your career is done, your film is longer on the other end than that end. I think the response — we had a good practice today, real good. We get ready for this team. It’s an entirely different type team relative to what they do schematically, how they run the ball and what they do defensively than the team we just played. We have to lock in and be ready for a different type of opponent.”
Following that motivational message from Payton, the Broncos will attempt to bounce back from the Chiefs loss when they host the Atlanta Falcons on Sunday.
