If there’s anyone who can relate to Sean Payton about now – the Denver Broncos coach is navigating a sudden crisis with quarterback Bo Nix knocked out of the AFC championship game with a season-ending fractured bone in his right ankle – it is Bill Parcells.
The Hall of Fame coach, aka ‘The Tuna,’ guided the New York Giants to a Super Bowl 25 crown with backup quarterback Jeff Hostetler replacing Phil Simms for the stretch run after Simms, ironically, went down with a broken right foot in Week 15 of the 1990 season.
Now, 35 years later, Payton’s team is one victory from advancing to Super Bowl 60, needing backup Jarrett Stidham to, well, turn into a modern-day Hostetler.
That Parcells is Payton’s wise mentor, adds another layer to the plot.
‘I’ve spoken with him. He’s ready to go,’ Parcells told USA TODAY Sports on Tuesday.
Parcells knows all too well how Payton, as New Orleans Saints coach, handled the adversity of losing Drew Brees for five games in 2019 with a torn ligament in his right thumb. Enter Teddy Bridgewater. With Payton pushing the buttons, the Saints went 5-0 without the centerpiece of one of the NFL’s most explosive offenses.
That experience for Payton won’t hurt now.
‘It speaks for itself,’ Parcells grumbled. ‘He’s already been through it. He went through it with Brees. So, he’s done it. He knows what he’s doing.’
It was a given that Payton tapped the Tuna this week, with the New England Patriots coming to Empower Field for the showdown on Sunday. Payton was Parcells’ assistant head coach for three seasons with the Dallas Cowboys, beginning in 2003, before landing his first head coaching job with the Saints. They have remained close over the years, and Payton is hardly shy in expressing his reverence for Parcells, 84, vouching for the influence he has had on his coaching philosophy and style.
And their bond is wrapped in enormous success. Payton ranks 11th on the all-time list for NFL coaching victories (194, including postseason) passing his mentor earlier this season. Parcells is 16th with 183 wins and is one of 14 coaches to win multiple Super Bowls.
In addition to football strategy, the Tuna’s psychological methods surely rubbed off on the Broncos coach. Parcells, for example, was one who would set out mousetraps in the locker room to remind players not to fall into a trap. Payton’s been known to use gas cans as a prop, the message being that they had better not run out of gas.
And Lord knows, like Parcells, Payton, 62, can set a tone with crankiness.
There’s even an inspirational Parcells quote displayed in the hallway of the team’s headquarters, as noted by The Denver Post, that reads: Don’t ever let good enough be good enough.
What a great resource to tap into while in the throes of crisis. If I’m Payton, I’m asking my mentor to take me back to messaging he had for his Giants squad – which included the likes of Lawrence Taylor, Carl Banks, Joe Morris and Mark Bavaro – when Simms suffered his season-ending injury.
If I’m not Payton, I’m asking, too.
‘This is literally what I did: I said, ‘Look, we’re not going to lose or not have a chance to play for a championship because of Jeff Hostetler,” Parcells said. ”It’s going to be one of you other guys.’
‘I used a different word for ‘other guys,’ by the way. It begins with mother, okay? I said, ‘It will be one of you ‘other-blanks’ that screws up something that keeps us out. But he won’t do it. He’ll be ready to go.”
Fast-forward to the present and the gist of those team-oriented, tough-love words from Parcells a generation ago might resonate with the cast surrounding Stidham. In other words, dropped passes, missed blocks, blown coverages and needless penalties, for instance, would be no way to support the fill-in quarterback.
Then there’s a key difference. Hostetler, in his fifth season as Simms’ backup, had an opportunity to ramp up to the pressure-packed postseason. He started the final two regular-season games, and the Giants opened the playoffs with a rout. They won the NFC championship game at San Francisco against the 49ers and the Super Bowl against the Buffalo Bills by a combined total of three points.
Stidham, on the other hand, hasn’t thrown a pass in a real game since 2023. There is no ramp-up acclimation. He is immediately thrown into the fire with a Super Bowl berth at stake. A seventh-year pro, ‘Stiddy,’ as he’s called, was one of Payton’s first free agent signings when the coach arrived in 2023. While there’s undoubtedly a comfort level for Stidham in Payton’s system and vice versa, the minimal action equates to a huge unknown.
‘In fairness to what you’ve seen, which is very limited, he’s ready,’ said Payton, mindful that Stidham sparkled during the preseason and presumably on the practice field. ‘I feel like I have a (No.) 2 (quarterback) that’s capable of starting for a number of teams. I know he feels the same way. So, watch out. Just watch.’
For all Payton has done to establish a culture, revamp personnel and bring winning results during his three seasons, Nix’s injury suddenly poses a challenge that could reveal the level of completeness for this mix. The Broncos absorbed the $85 million salary cap hit for cutting Russell Wilson. They have assembled one of the NFL’s best defenses. They dethroned the Kansas City Chiefs as nine-time defending AFC West champs. They earned the No. 1 seed in the AFC playoffs and won the franchise’s first postseason game in a decade.
Now this. Nix underwent surgery on Tuesday.
Sure, he’s been clutch. Including Sunday, Nix led the Broncos to an NFL-high eight victories this season after trailing in the fourth quarter. Then again, it’s never about just one player and Payton is one of the NFL’s winningest coaches for a reason. There are always adjustments, always fires to put out.
This week, the agenda for Payton and staff, including coordinator Joe Lombardi, is to craft the best plan possible that is tailored to Stidham. That’s not to be confused with reinventing the wheel.
‘It’s almost business as usual,’ Parcells said. ‘Maybe you might have something in there that you’ve seen him do well in practice, on a couple of particular routes that he likes maybe better than (Nix) did. It’s just things like that. You’ve got to talk to the player, too. Find out what he’s confident about, what he feels like. So, you spend a little time doing that prior to making your game plan.’
Parcells’ pupil will surely check those boxes. And then some. Payton will also bring the mindset that the mission is hardly impossible.
Contact Jarrett Bell at jbell@usatoday.com. Follow him on X: @JarrettBell