Sean Payton explains why he canceled the last day of minicamp

The Denver Broncos won’t be practicing on Thursday as Sean Payton has changed his initial plan and will now give the team a head start on their summer break.

The second-year head coach of the Broncos felt the team accomplished a lot in their spring practices, concluding with Wednesday’s second and now final day of minicamp.

“All of this is to prepare, let’s not lose track of the number one goal when camp starts it’s to arrive at the right 53 (man roster)” Payton said on Wednesday. “We spend a lot of time on that because you don’t want to player in your camp that ends up leaving and excelling somewhere else. So how do we get the exposure to these players so that we can make the right decisions and so it’s all geared on the right 53 and the right practice squad… At this point, you know, we got to go by what we see.”

And obviously, Payton likes what he sees or he wouldn’t have called off Thursday’s practice.

Payton took the Broncos from winners of five games to eight in his first season despite the roster getting worse. Now Denver is seemingly entering somewhat of a rebuild with a three-man race for the starting quarterback job. Few expect the Broncos to improve again, but there can still be positive progress.

“I think we have good competition,” Payton said. On all the numbers all the metrics that we track… I’d say the competition kind of sharpens things. We have it in a lot of spots. And so it was different, it felt different this year in a good way.”

Payton also pointed out this coming six-week break is no longer a thing in the college game with coaches recruiting year-round. He mentioned that this is valuable time for his staff to get right and the extra day is about managing his people.

“I told them today in the team meeting otherwise the keys would have been in the ignition tomorrow,” Payton spoke of work-life balance. “For me, I’ve just got a few vices, I golf every day and then come back and get ready to go. So it’s a little bit like getting ready to get on an aircraft carrier July 23rd or 24th and you know for the next six months you’re off and so there’ll be a few offseason projects I’ve got like a folder of a couple of things I want to do but it’s a little easier after your kids are raised and they’re out of the house.”

The biggest stories of minicamp were the three-man race for quarterback between Bo Nix, Zach Wilson and Jarrett Stidham, which is wide open. And what will happen next with veteran receiver Courtland Sutton, who is unhappy about his contract? Neither of those storylines had conclusions.