Sean Payton apparently got close to making one of the strangest coaching arrangements imaginable.
In Seth Wickersham’s recent ESPN profile of Payton and the Broncos’ 2025 playoff run, the Denver coach is said to have considered stepping aside in 2024 so Bill Belichick could come in and chase the NFL’s all-time wins record. The idea, as Wickersham lays it out, would have been for Belichick to take over until he reached 15 more victories, enough to pass Don Shula’s career mark of 347.
That possibility came after Belichick’s split with the Patriots following their 4-13 season in 2023. The 71-year-old drew little interest on the head-coaching market, even after interviewing twice with the Falcons, including one meeting on owner Arthur Blank’s superyacht. Instead of taking a lesser role in the league, Belichick stepped away for a year before resurfacing at the college level and taking over as North Carolina’s head coach in late 2025.
Wickersham wrote that Payton and Belichick share a friendship rooted in mutual respect - and mutual trauma - from their time coaching under Bill Parcells. The proposed setup would have had Payton temporarily move to assistant head coach and run the offense, then return once Belichick became the NFL’s all-time wins leader.
”Then move back after Belichick became the all-time leader. In the end, it was too complicated-and maybe too fanciful.”
It would have been a wild twist for a Broncos coach who has gone 32-19 in the regular season over three years in Denver, including a 14-3 2025 campaign that earned the No. 1 seed in the AFC playoffs. That run ended with a loss to the Patriots in the conference title game.
And the irony would have been hard to miss: a Broncos team that spent years as a thorn in Belichick’s side - he went 11-10 against them overall, including 1-3 in the playoffs - might have ended up being the team he coached next.
At the time, though, just about anything seemed possible, especially after Belichick reportedly reached out to the Jets about their head-coaching opening.
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