Sean Payton rips Nathaniel Hackett for Broncos job, jabs Jets - ESPN

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton has said he doesn't want his team to look in the rearview mirror, but Payton took a long gaze back in an interview Wednesday with USA Today Sports.

In an expansive mood, Payton called the work Nathaniel Hackett and his staff did with the 2022 Broncos «one of the worst coaching jobs in the history of the NFL» and said there were «20 dirty hands» around quarterback Russell Wilson's career-worst season that included just 16 touchdown passes and a league-high 55 sacks.

Ultimately Payton summed it up with «everything I heard about last season, we're doing the opposite.»

Payton also took aim at Hackett's new employer — the New York Jets — where Hackett is offensive coordinator and the team traded for a high-profile quarterback in Aaron Rodgers much like the Broncos had traded for Wilson last year.

«It doesn't happen often where an NFL team or organization gets embarrassed,» Payton told USA Today. «And that happened here. Part of it was their own fault, relative to spending so much [expletive] time trying to win the offseason — the PR, the pomp and circumstance, marching people around and all this stuff.

»We're not doing any of that. The Jets did that this year. You watch. 'Hard Knocks,' all of it. I can see it coming. Remember when [former Washington owner] Dan Snyder put that Dream Team together? I was at the Giants [in 2000]. I was a young coach. I thought, 'How are we going to compete with them? Deion's [Sanders] there now.' That team won eight games or whatever. So, listen… just put the work in."

The Broncos will play the Jets in Week 5, hosting Hackett's new team on Sunday, Oct. 8.

Payton has been offered plenty of opportunities, been asked about Wilson and the Broncos'