Broncos fans, ticketed to a maximum of 3,000 per day, will start showing up at the Dove Valley complex tomorrow.
That’s when their team, with rookies and veterans alike on hand, commences full-squad preparations for the coming season.
And the same questions, in one form or another, will be on the minds of virtually everyone in attendance, as well as countless others who aren’t there in person.
Does Sean Payton really know the secret to turning talented but undersized quarterbacks into giants under center?
Will he be as successful coaching 5-foot-11 Russell Wilson as he was for more than a dozen years with 6-foot Drew Brees?
The answers will go a long way toward determining how the Broncos fare in Payton’s first season as Denver’s head coach.
No one, of course, can know now how things will turn out. But some comparisons are worth considering.
Playing for Payton in New Orleans in his age-34 season (2013), Brees passed for 5,162 yards—his third straight season topping 5,000 yards and fourth of five in his career. He threw 39 touchdown passes—third most in 20 seasons—and the Saints went 11-5.
Stumbling under dysfunctional Nathaniel Hackett at that same age last season, Wilson totaled 3,524 years and 16 touchdown passes—the fewest in any of his pro seasons—as Denver finished 5-12.
Brees, who retired at 41 after the 2021 season, still had several highly productive seasons in him after 34, all with Payton as his head coach.
In his age-35 season, he led the league in completions (456), attempts (659), total yardage (4,952) and yards per game (305).
His completion percentage his last five seasons was .700 or better every year, and in 2018, at the age of 39, he led the Saints to 13 wins and first place in the NFL South Division.
This history raises hopes that maybe last season wasn’t the fast slide down the back side of Wilson’s peak that it appeared to be. Maybe, now that he’s playing for Sean Payton, his best years are still to come.
Maybe. But maybe not.
A closer look shows that even when Wilson was at his best in Seattle, Russell wasn’t quite equal to Brees, at least not statistically.
During the nine years their NFL careers overlapped, Brees led the league in various positive categories 18 times, to Wilson’s two, and passed for 39,616 yards and 290 touchdowns, to Wilson’s 33,946 and 267.
Brees was sacked 212 times (1.59 per game) for 1,483 yards in 133 games. Wilson, who scrambled much more, was nailed almost twice as much (394 times, or 2.75 per game) for almost double the losses (2,642 yards) in only 10 more games.
BUT . . .
Wilson’s winning percentage was .685 (98-45) to .602 for Brees (80-53).
The difference was on the ground. Wilson ran for 4,506 yards, while Brees gained 187—about 21 yards per year. Brees also threw more interceptions, 97-81.
Sean Payton comes to the Russell Wilson Challenge as the fifth head coach in the past 53 years to be part of a trade involving a first-round draft choice.
Three of the first four won a Super Bowl within three seasons: Don Shula, traded from the Colts to the Dolphins; Bill Belichick, Jets to Patriots; and Jon Gruden, Raiders to Buccaneers.
Shula, Gruden and Bill Parcells (with the Jets) posted winning records in their first seasons with their new teams.
There is no shortage of opinions on how Payton will do with Wilson, though none is definitive.
“If he can’t do it, it can’t be done,” Super Bowl-winning Hall of Fame coach Dick Vermeil has said.
“Sean’s had good success with quarterbacks and developing Drew Brees,” Payton mentor Parcells said, “so hopefully (this) will work out . . .”
One thing seems certain.
With the additions of Mike McGlinchey and Ben Powers on the offensive line . . . the return to health of wide receivers Tim Patrick, Courtland Sutton and Jerry Jeudy . . . and the anticipated return of running back Javonte Williams, lost after four games last year, Wilson has to be better than he was last season.
But matching Brees at 35 (and beyond) will depend in part on Payton and his coaching staff, in part on the team they assemble around Wilson; and in large part on a slimmed-down Wilson himself.
Dove Valley Days should tell us a lot.
Denny Dressman is a veteran of 43 years in the newspaper business, including 25 at the Rocky Mountain News, where he began as executive sports editor. He is the author of 15 books, nine of them sports-related. You can write to Denny at dennydressman@comcast.net.