Sean Payton is one of the great offensive minds of his generation. His scheme, his creativity, and his willingness to attack defenses from a wide range of formations have defined some of the mostexplosive offenses of the last two decades.
But greatness always comes with tradeoffs. And for Payton, the tradeoff has often been simple to identify. The offense sometimes gets in its own way, buried under the sheer volume of plays and options available to the play caller on any given down.
That’s where Davis Webb enters the picture.
Webb is stepping into the offensive coordinator and play-calling role this season. One of the most-interesting subplots of his elevation is whether he will streamline the operation in ways Payton never fully committed to.
On a recent edition of “Dover and Cecil” on 104.3 The Fan, fill-in host James Merilatt zeroed in on the exact scenario where Payton’s expansive philosophy has historically caused problems.
“Part of the problem with third-and-one; if the Broncos have third-and-one, what are they calling? What are they doing? I don’t know. And I think that’s part of Sean Payton’s problem as a play caller, of it’s really difficult when you have your whole sheet,” Merilatt said.
That’s a big part of why this offense has often looked indecisive in critical moments. When your play sheet contains hundreds of options, choosing quickly under pressure becomes a real challenge.
Josh Dover pointed out that Payton himself has acknowledged as much publicly.
“Which he mentioned, right? He’s like, ‘There’s so many options and I get through it, and I’m at 10 seconds left, and I don’t know what to do,'” Dover said.
That admission is rare from a coach of Payton’s stature, a candid acknowledgment that the volume of the playbook has, at times, worked against the offense in high-leverage moments. Merilatt then delivered a comparison that captured the situation in a way that most of us can relate to.
“He’s sitting there reading the Cheesecake Factory menu and he has no idea what to go with. That’s why it takes so long,” Merilatt said.
The Cheesecake Factory menu. Endless options, endless variations and a decision-making process that often ends with the us just pointing at something and hoping for the best.
Great offenses in the NFL, particularly in critical downs, tend to look more like a well-curated restaurant with a short but excellent menu. They know what they do best. They know when to call it. And they execute it with conviction.
Merilatt closed with the framing every successful offense eventually adopts.
“You have to kind of establish your identity. And I know that it sounds cliche, but that’s just figuring out, what you are great at. What do you do when the game is on the line? How do you convert in those kinds of situations,” Merilatt said.
That’s exactly the challenge in front of Davis Webb. He inherits an offense loaded with talent and a playbook loaded with concepts. His job is to distill the operation into something more streamlined. To identify the handful of concepts this offense executes better than anything else and to lean on them in the moments that matter most.
A shorter menu doesn’t mean a less creative offense. It means a more decisive one. And in a league where hesitation loses games, decisiveness is often the difference between a good offense and a great one.
Bo Nix has proven he can operate inside a dense system. But the leap the Broncos are trying to make this season may come from Webb doing what Payton never quite did. Simplifying the operation just enough to let the offense breathe.