Every coach who has ever sat down to grind cutups from around the league knows the trap. You watch a highlight, you fall in love with it, you install it Wednesday, and then it dies on Sunday because the guy who made it work for the other team is a first-round talent you don't have. Sean Payton has a filter for that, and it's worth stealing.
In a two-week, all-access feature from ESPN's Seth Wickersham, published as the Broncos worked their way through the playoffs, Payton pulled back the curtain on the Monday routine that has quietly driven one of the most productive offensive minds of his era. "Every week is a new puzzle," Payton shared. "People think they understand, but they don't."
Here's the ritual. Every Monday, Payton sits at his computer and watches every touchdown scored across the league that weekend. Then he sorts each one into two buckets and asks a single question: play or player?
If it's player, he skips it. He can't replicate it, so it's no use to him.
If it's play, he moves it into a folder of ideas he can mold and adapt to.
That folder is the engine. It's how a coach who has been calling plays since the 1990s keeps finding new answers instead of recycling the same call sheet everyone in the building already knows cold.
For coaches reading this, the takeaway is simple and free. Separate scheme from talent when you self-scout and when you steal from others. A touchdown from a Sunday game that only happened because a receiver ran past two defenders is not a concept. It's a mismatch you likely can't recreate. A touchdown that came from formation, motion, and a defender's bad first step is a concept, and concepts travel. They work at the NFL level, they work in college, and they will work on Friday nights.
The credibility behind the method is hard to argue with. Payton spent 16 seasons as head coach of the Saints, won Super Bowl XLIV, and came up under Bill Parcells, who used to needle him about drawing up fancy calls to make a name for himself. Payton keeps a computer file of all 807 offensive touchdowns he called in New Orleans, an NFL record over that 16-year span. Now in Denver, he built a 14-3 team in 2025 that won the AFC West and earned the AFC's top seed. The Broncos beat the Bills 33-30 in the divisional round before falling 10-7 to the Patriots in the AFC Championship, a run that got harder when Bo Nix went down early against Buffalo.
The wins and losses will come and go. The habit is the point here. Watch every touchdown, ask play or player, and build the folder. That's the process of building an offense from a Monday routine.
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