![]() “One was Mike’s comfort in the system,” Strief said last week. He saw the growth that allowed the 6-foot-3, 212-pound receiver to put it all together. Strief had the unique vantage point of being Thomas’ teammate for two seasons (2016-17) and then calling his historic 2019 season from the radio booth above the field. Still, it would be reductive to label the record-breaking or career-best performances achieved by Saints skill players as simply the product of an elite coach-quarterback combination. “Hall of Fame quarterbacks help with that,” said Zach Strief, the Broncos’ offensive line coach who played for the Saints from 2006 to 2017, then spent several seasons as a play-by-play radio broadcaster for New Orleans before jumping into coaching. So our offensive install, passing game specifically, he’s giving coaching points, telling tight ends, ‘Hey, you’ve got to break your route off here.’ Or, ‘You’ve got to get to this depth and look for the pass here.’” “A lot of times you hear ‘attention to detail,’ but what does that mean? What it means is Sean is one of those types of coaches who, while he does have an offensive coordinator, he is greatly involved in everything. “I grew tremendously as an offensive player,” Graham told The Athletic of his years playing for Payton. During his third season in 2015, after Graham was traded to the Seahawks, Watson set career highs with 74 catches, 825 yards receiving and six touchdowns. Benjamin Watson had already been in the NFL for a decade when he joined the Saints in 2013, and he had spent six seasons playing with quarterback Tom Brady in New England, but he never performed offensively quite like he did with the Saints. Not that a player had to make history to realize the potential of his impact. “Seeing how Thomas played in our offense and seeing the great things he did, I’m seeing if I can steal some things and complement them to my game,” said Broncos wide receiver Jerry Jeudy, a self-professed “film junkie” who spent time this offseason watching Thomas’ tape as far back as the 2017 season. There are plenty of performances to study as Broncos players dream of what they can achieve in their new offense, no matter the position they play. Read more: Best NFL futures bets: Why the AFC’s overall strength creates conference title value Then there is future Hall of Fame quarterback Drew Brees, whose 15 seasons with the Saints included a lengthy list of single-season and career passing records, some of which are still in place. That same season, second-year player Jimmy Graham broke Kellen Winslow’s 31-year-old league record for single-season receiving yards by a tight end (1,310), though that mark has since been topped by Rob Gronkowski, Travis Kelce and George Kittle. Darren Sproles set an NFL record in 2011 with 2,696 all-purpose yards, a mark that still stands. In 2019, Thomas topped Marvin Harrison’s previous record for receptions in a season by six catches. Those qualities are equally appealing to Broncos players, particularly those who have spent multiple seasons playing for a Denver franchise that has won fewer games than all but four teams - the Lions, Jaguars, Giants and Jets - since 2017.īut there is another element of playing for Payton that is attractive to the Broncos’ skill players: his ability to help players consistently perform at a career-best level individually, sometimes toppling franchise or league records in the process. The part of Sean Payton’s resume that mattered most to the Broncos ownership group when it decided to hire him in February after an exhaustive search to replace Nathaniel Hackett were his 152 wins, seven division titles and one Super Bowl championship and his ability to stay offensively innovative year after year amid changing league trends. Obviously, (Thomas) had a really good year that year, so to be able to find ways to implement the things he did well into my game, hopefully that will help us have a lot of success.”Ĭourtland Sutton wins on his Dig route and Russell Wilson fires it in while working left and getting hit /TA2AWdfdPt “You’re figuring out ways you may be able to get open. ![]() ![]() “Just diving into it, you’re able to see how he may have run a route that we’re just learning,” Sutton said. ![]()
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