Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton is nothing if not motivational.
Ahead of the Broncos' 28-24 win over the Kansas City Chiefs, Payton was motivated to beat their AFC West rivals after a horrendous Week 1 showing.
"I put a number on the grease board in the pregame locker room; you guys will appreciate this, 48," Payton said in his postgame press conference. "It was 48 days since we played that Monday night game, and we were awful. I put one of those fold-up chairs, not like this, but the pads in them. My plan was at some point during the pregame talk to pick that chair up and kind of Bobby Knight it into the... Now there’s a problem. These fold-up chairs are much heavier. So I did a test run and I kind of lift — and I’m like, well, the only thing
I could throw then would be the hand sanitizer stand. I wasn’t going to do that.”
Payton was referring to when Indiana Hoosiers coach Bobby Knight in a basketball game against Purdue in 1985:
Despite not throwing the chair, Payton believes his message was conveyed loud and clear.
"The 48 (was) on the grease board," Payton said. "I just got angry and shouted without the chair going. The chair is heavy. So I didn’t feel like I could get that like the old fold up chairs. The chair sat propped. No one knew what the chair was for. As soon as I tried to lift it earlier, I thought, ‘Well, we’re not doing the chair.’ That was basically it. It had nothing to do with the Chiefs, it had everything to do about us. When you have a game like that, you’re embarrassed. It feels rotten. So you had to wait 48 days. Shoot, they’re a good team. The hand sanitizer was going to be easy. I just don’t know if that was going to be effective.”
Previously, Payton has used motivational tactics such as a Brink's truck with the Lombardi Trophy inside, and giving oxygen tanks to give his players extra juice going into games.
Defensive lineman Malcolm Roach, who had the game-sealing sack of Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, said the players knew the crucial nature of the game.
"We kind of knew what we had coming into the game and like we said leading into it, it wasn’t that we lost; it’s the way we lost Week 1," Roach said after the game. 48 days, it just didn’t feel right. It wasn’t right, and we kind of knew it was going to come back around. We just had to make the most of the opportunity and we did that.”
The big win over Kansas City gives Denver the ability to control its own destiny, both in the AFC West, and in the AFC playoff race. Quarterback Bo Nix talked about the big win and what it means for the team moving forward.
"It means a lot," Nix said. "That’s a big divisional win for us, obviously—one of our toughest opponents in the division, one of our rivals. They played us really well again, and we just responded this time. That’s just a good football team, and they’re going to give us their best every time, and so we just have to respond well.”
Coming off a high from their win over the Chiefs, the Broncos can't take their foot off the gas, and are looking forward to their Week 9 opponent, the Carolina Panthers, on Sunday.
Social: Follow Broncos Wire on Facebook and Twitter/X!
This article originally appeared on Broncos Wire: Sean Payton’s pre-game motivational prop failed, but his message still worked
