Sean Payton responds to criticism and states that he is quietly assembling his coaching staff

Sean Payton responds to some criticism and provides and update on how he is assembling his staff.

Sean Payton is known to be feisty with media and we got a taste of that tonight. Eric Goodman of Mile High Sports tweeted out his frustrations about how long it is taking Payton to assemble his coaching staff. Not much has been reported and we only know of a handful of coaches who have been hired or agreed to join Payton’s staff. Goodman finished his tweet by saying “This is embarrassing”.

Well, Payton decided to “clap back” as the kids say these days, and stated that his staff is much further along than what is being currently reported.

Payton responded by saying he actually has 16 coaching vacancies filled on his staff and only has five remaining openings. That is much different than Goodman’s comment of only having six coaches, including Payton himself, on his staff.

This is just another example of how this new Broncos’ regime is being a bit more secretive than the prior regime. Under John Elway and Joe Ellis, we had multiple leaks and often knew of the draft plans weeks before the draft. 9NEWS Denver’s Mike Klis tweeted out that there has been a “turnstile of coaches running through Dove Valley last few days” and that Payton and the Broncos have kept a lid on it.

This is just speculation on my part, but I would assume that most, if not all of Payton’s offensive staff have been filled out. Those coaches would likely be ones he is familiar with and able to keep under wraps for now. So, it would make sense that a majority of those 16 coaches who have been hired are offensive coaches.

Now, we know one of those five final remaining vacancies is the defensive coordinator position. Payton has been interviewing candidates like Rex Ryan, Vance Joseph, and Matt Patricia in recent days for that position and a decision appears to be coming soon. So, it is safe to assume that most, if not all, of those final four openings, are on the defensive side of the ball. Whoever is hired as the defensive coordinator would likely want to bring in his own people and that would finalize Payton’s staff.

So, we need to have some patience here. Payton and the Broncos are doing a lot of work behind the scenes and a lot of the local media is out of the loop. We saw this with the head coaching search and we are now seeing this here with Payton assembling his staff.