When the Denver Broncos brought in Sean Payton following their catastrophically bad 2022 season, Payton promised to bring the franchise back to its prior years of success. Denver was in the midst of a playoff drought that rivaled only the Jets for total years, and was now one of football's true laughing stocks. Payton had what seemed like an impossible task, and he made it harder at first.
When the Broncos brought in Payton, a great deal of the conversation around his hire was focused on Russell Wilson. After a mediocre season in 2025, Payton chose to move on from the veteran quarterback and induce the largest dead cat hit in football history.