Payton/Wilson Marriage 'Played Out' How Drew Brees Expected

When the Denver Broncos hired Sean Payton, almost everyone saw it as a huge boost to Russell Wilson's listing stock. Alas, the Payton/Wilson marriage didn't go well and is trending toward a divorce. 

However, Denver's Payton/Wilson experiment played out how Drew Brees expected it to.

"It kind of played out the way I thought it would, honestly," Brees told NBC Sports' Mike Florio and Chris Simms. "I think Russell has a skill set and I think Russell is still going to be able to go and have a great rest of his career elsewhere. As I watched them play this year, it didn’t feel like the timing, the rhythm, the tempo that I’m used to seeing in a Sean Payton offense. And I know those are the hallmarks of the offense. That’s the standard that’s been set."

There was definitely no mistaking the Broncos' 2023 offense with the Payton/Brees units of the New Orleans Saints for all those years. Instead of the high-tempo, rhythm-focused attack that Payton's scheme became known for, the Broncos rolled out a run-heavy offense that featured a simplified progression for Wilson, relying heavily on the play-action and his deep-ball accuracy. 

Brees was a cerebral pocket passer who did much of his damage long before the ball was ever snapped. He was a great decision-maker and was more of a football point guard and facilitator. He was the ideal Payton quarterback.

The only similarity Brees and Wilson share is that they've both won a Super Bowl and their relative height as quarterbacks. 

“I think Russell, to me, is not a timing/rhythm passer," Brees said. "Russell is one of the best deep-ball throwers in the league and has been for a long time. But it’s run game, it’s read/option stuff, it’s the RPO game, and then it’s the heavy play-action. ‘Man, let’s let him launch it.’ Or kind of give him these high-to-low reads. To me, that’s the best system for him.”

That's exactly the type of scheme Payton designed for Wilson. Unfortunately, it didn't pan out well. Although Wilson did finish with a respectable 26-to-8 touchdown-to-interception ratio, the Broncos' passing offense was painfully inconsistent, outside of some high-level red-zone passing and a few miracles. 

In 15 starts, Wilson barely eclipsed 3,000 passing yards. In a Payton offense, fans obviously expected more. Payton surely wished for more. But Brees wasn't surprised that the aerial production didn't come. 

As for how the Payton/Wilson marriage disintegrated, Brees claims ignorance. But he's still bullish on the Broncos' future because of his intimate knowledge of Payton's wherewithal as a coach. 

"Look, I don’t know the inner workings, I don’t know what’s happened behind the scenes, or anything else," Brees said, "but I know they’ve got a talented roster—they’ll continue to build that. They’ve got an ownership group that’s going to provide whatever resources they need for Sean Payton to win. And I know this: Sean is an excellent communicator, and he is an excellent orchestrator of, like, ‘Here’s what we need to win. Here’s the culture. Here’s the standard of excellence.’ And now it’s plugging the pieces in place to get that done.” 

The Broncos are on the hunt for a centerpiece to plug in — a future franchise quarterback. When Brees was asked about which quarterback(s) he could see Payton going after, he got what you might call a big, let's say, crap-eating grin on his face. But the future Hall-of-Famer kept his QB cards close to the vest while seemingly forecasting a "shake-up" draft move.

“I don’t know. I think there’s always a shake-up," Brees said with a grin. "There’s some talented guys in the draft this year. Unfortunately, they traded quite a bit to get Russ in the first place, so if you’re in a position where you love one of these guys and you want to trade up, do you have the assets to do it? And what does that do to your roster moving forward? I do know this; you really do have to build your team through the draft. You can go out in free agency, and you can get some core pieces, some core leadership pieces, some cultural pieces, but, man, if you’re going to build your team within this cap system, you’ve gotta do it through the draft. 

Brees' response dove-tails quite nicely with the rumor that emerged from the Senior Bowl that Payton and the Broncos are looking to trade up to land one of the Big 3 quarterbacks. Whether the Broncos will be able to find a taker remains to be seen, but Brees' body language and response very much communicated that Payton is working on something.