Sean Payton Unveils Secret Behind Broncos’ Stellar Injury Luck: Five-Week Strength Focus

For the longest time, it felt like the Denver Broncos were snakebitten. This team could not stay out of the injury bug's crosshairs.

In 2022, the Broncos had an injury epidemic of sorts, finishing the season as the team with the third-most salary-cap dollars sitting on injured reserve. It was one thing after another — then Sean Payton arrived in 2023, and suddenly, the bites the injury bug was taking out of the Broncos weren't coming so easily.

As 9NEWS' Mike Klis reported earlier this year, the Broncos had 16 injuries that led to a player missing time in 2024, which led the NFL for the fewest number. In 2023, Payton's first year, the Broncos finished second in that metric. That's quite the leap forward.

There are a multitude of factors that have led to the Broncos turning around their injury fortunes, not the least of which was the team's decision to hire Beau Lowery as vice president of player health and performance, a move that Payton suggested and campaigned for with ownership. Lowery brings a unique perspective to the Broncos, and one way that it comes out in the wash is in how Payton approaches Phase 1 of the offseason training program.

Phase 1 is about strength and conditioning, and the Broncos stay with it much longer than their NFL peers, according to Payton.

“We’re probably the only team that stays in Phase 1 for five weeks. So, I would say the most important thing we do is lift, change our bodies, run, condition," Payton said last Thursday as mandatory minicamp came to a close.

As far as Payton is concerned, there will be no shortage of time to practice football out on the grass. To make the most of those practices and, thus, the season, the Broncos emphasize player health and performance in the initial stages of the offseason training program, extending it to five weeks instead of two.

"We’ll have plenty of time for football. There’s a reason we spend five weeks and we don’t even go near [football]," Payton said. "I don’t want them pulling into the parking lot in April thinking they’re coming to football practice. I want them coming here knowing that they’re going to get a good workout in, good lift in. So that would be the most important thing.”

The seed of Payton's philosophy on player health, strength, and conditioning was planted by one of his core mentors, Bill Parcells. Payton took many lasting lessons away from his years as a Parcells assistant, including the importance of the offensive line as the cornerstone of a roster's foundation.

“That was Bill [Parcells]. I remember, I had the quarterbacks and receivers," Payton said. "First week, they’re lifting, and I got them out on the field. Now they’d been with us four days. He walks to the door outside the practice field, and he’s just looking at me. He says, ‘If one of these receivers gets a hamstring [injury], I’m going to have another quarterback/receiver coach.’ And he was right."

Payton was only doing what he thought was his job: getting the quarterbacks and receivers out on the field throwing passes and running routes. But you don't know what you don't know, and Parcells' reality check served as an epiphany for the young Payton.

"In other words, we don’t know at that moment where they’re at from a conditioning and strength standpoint," Payton said. "So, I would say that was him.”

The Broncos' track record on player health will be put to the test this season after the team spent big money on three free agents, each of whom has a troubling injury history. At the same time, if you're safety Talanoa Hufanga, linebacker Dre Greenlaw, or tight end Evan Engram, Denver was the best possible place to land if your first priority is health and availability.

Even the Broncos' signing of veteran running back J.K. Dobbins last week comes with some injury red flags. But the Broncos are very confident in their approach to keeping the players healthy, and even though Dobbins missed Phase 1 of OTAs, no doubt he'll be taken under the team's wing over the next six weeks before training camp to prepare his body within the scope of the team's strength and conditioning program.

If the Broncos' eye-opening results on the injury front continue in Year 3 of the Payton regime, this team is going to be dangerous. With the biggest chunk of the Russell Wilson dead-money albatross now being in the rear-view, and the 2024 draft class, including Bo Nix, having a full year under its belt, Payton is hopeful that the Broncos can take the next step.

“You hope that we’re further along because we played a lot of young players a year ago," Payton said. "$91 million dead cap is two-thirds of an operating budget. So, a lot of young players got a chance to play. So, you hope quite naturally that those guys are further along.”