ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — For his final team meeting of the offseason Thursday morning, Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton enlisted the help of his boss, owner Greg Penner.
Payton likes to use analogies, and the one he used throughout the offseason, and as the team was about to conduct its final one-hour practice before a 5 ½-week break, was about how difficult it is to climb a mountain – and how easy it can be to slip back to the bottom.
“I don’t know a whole lot about climbing mountains, but our owner does,’’ Payton told the media in a Zoom press conference Thursday. “Greg Penner has climbed seven of the tallest peaks in the world, and there’s a process involved in that. Weeks. Months. And yet the descent down can take a day-and-a-half, two days.’’
Penner has actually climbed five of the seven highest summits on each continent (Kilimanjaro, Everest, Aconcagua, Vinson Massif and Denali). He still plans to climb Russia’s Mount Elbrus and New Guinea’s Puncak Jaya, or Carstensz. Penner has also climbed two other top peaks in Tibetan’s Cho You and Nepal’s Ama Dablam. He’s also climbed a bunch of 14ers in the United States.
Penner, you see, has impressively reached the summit on more than just Walmart. Anyway, about Payton’s climbing-the-mountain theme.
“There’s a simple picture of the Rocky Mountains with a little X on it that says, ‘Base Camp,’ ’’ Payton said. “In other words, this is where we’re at right now. And we can’t afford in this journey to decide to hang out at base camp for two weeks or go backwards."
And then Payton got around to the expert.
“Greg was fantastic,’’ Payton said. “I gave my completely rookie generic version of what I thought it would be, and then I asked Greg to help me with it, and then I realized I was clueless relative to climbing mountains. But nonetheless the point was made – man, the work going north is much more treacherous, difficult, challenging, and it’s very easy for that to slip. And so we’re all counting on each other, and that was the main message.”
Stay in shape, guys. Physically, the Broncos got out of their offseason in good shape, the exception being third-year edge rusher Baron Browning, who is now expected to miss the first few games of the season following knee surgery.
Payton said he continues to be optimistic that running back Javonte Williams will be ready for the start of training camp as he continues to recover well from last year’s ACL surgery. The Broncos’ top two drafted rookies, receiver Marvin Mims Jr. and linebacker Drew Sanders, have been held out of practice the past week or so with minor injuries but Payton said he isn’t concerned they have fallen behind.
“No, I think they’re both real sharp mentally,’’ Payton said. “We have real good early glimpses of them, and they’re quickly healing.”
And so what about the Broncos in 2023?
“When the season gets near, training camp … I’m anxious to see what kind of team we have,’’ Payton said. “But to the conditioning level, to the strength, to the running, to the offseason program, I like where we’re at now.”
The key is to minimize the slippage during the extended break before training camp.
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