We’ve argued in the past that the NFL should embrace the transparency the UFL brings to officiating. A member of the NFL’s Competition Committee believes it will.
“And I think every once in a while the benefit of this other league we have, I think quite honestly it’s been helpful for our league,” Broncos coach Sean Payton recently told Jason La Canfora of SportsBoom.com. “Every once in a while you see something you like, and I think Dean Blandino and his crew, when we kick live right to the booth review, I think that’s healthy. And I think you’ll see that in the next two or three years in our league.”
As Blandino told Rich Eisen in April, transparency in officiating “eliminates some of the angst and some of maybe the conspiracy theories.” Keeping the review process a state secret makes people think the NFL has something to hide — especially when the UFL and a growing number of college conferences have pulled up the shades and thrown the doors open.
In this age of legalized, normalized, and heavily monetized sports betting, it’s important not only to get calls right but to create the perception that they’re doing everything they can to get calls right.
“I definitely think you’ll see that coming,” Payton said. “I think it’s healthy, and it’s certainly comforting for the fan when you can see how they arrive at decisions. And I think it’s fair, especially to the officials and the people doing the review, to see what we arrived at.”
Yes, Payton is just one voice. But he’s not alone.
“I think a number of people feel the same way,” Payton added.
While there will be logistical challenges, especially during the controlled chaos coming from the cluster of 1:00 p.m. ET kickoffs on every given Sunday, it makes sense to create the infrastructure to both handle reviews efficiently and accurately, and to communicate the information transparently.
Broncos Clips
It’s one thing for folks on the labor side to talk about the increased use of grass for NFL fields. It’s another thing for management to do it.
Recently, Raiders owner Mark Davis explained his commitment to grass “for safety purposes,” which may have rankled some of his partners who would prefer to see everyone hold the rope in the grass vs. turf tug-of-war. Broncos coach Sean Payton has also chimed in with comments pointing to more grass fields.
“Our game is a little different,” Payton told Jason La Canfora of SportsBoom.com. “When you’re playing in the trenches on that surface, you know, the type of football shoes we wear are different. . . . But eventually I think you’re going to see grass in more stadiums where it’s possible.”
Currently, the Dolphins, Bills (who switched to grass for their new stadium), Browns, Steelers, Ravens, Jaguars, Broncos, Chiefs, Raiders, Eagles, Commanders, Packers, Bears, Buccaneers, Cardinals, and 49ers play on grass. The other 16 play on artificial turf.
La Canfora notes that Payton acknowledged the logistical issues for having grass fields in covered stadiums. Still, multiple enclosed structures have shown that grass is doable in a dome for the World Cup.
It all comes down to money. And, with more and more players clamoring for grass, it also comes down to collective bargaining. The league won’t want more teams to choose to change from the fake stuff to the real stuff, with the issue of switching now becoming a potential topic for the next CBA.
Preference for grass and prioritizing grass are two different issues. The owners can now dig their heels into the artificial turf and force the players to make a concession in order to get it. Which is a good way for the owners to get something for doing it.
Last year, the Broncos were on pace to break the NFL record for sacks for much of the season, before falling short late in the year. This year, they’re expecting to get that record.
That’s the word from Broncos defensive lineman Zach Allen, who said defensive coordinator Vance Joseph’s schemes are guaranteed to give all the Broncos’ pass rushers plenty of opportunities to get to the opposing quarterback.
“In this league you’ve kind of always got to keep on finding ways to get better and adjusting and all that,” Allen said, via the Denver Post. “It also helps when you’ve got ‘V.J.’ dialing stuff up that helps us get one-on-ones. We’ve got a lot of good guys and that’s going to create a lot of opportunities for people. We came close to the sack record last year and we fully expect to break it this year.”
The NFL record for sacks in a season is 72, set by the 1984 Bears. Last year, the Broncos finished with 68 sacks. Allen is confident he and his teammates can find five more sacks this year.
In overtime of the divisional playoff game in Denver, Bills wide receiver Brandin Cooks had a catch in his hands at the Broncos’ 20-yard line that would have put Buffalo in range for the game-winning field goal and sent the Bills to the AFC Championship Game. But Denver’s Ja’Quan McMillian ripped the ball out of Cooks’ arms for an interception, and the Broncos kicked a game-winning field goal of their own on the next possession.
Cooks still can’t believe it.
“For a week straight, I was watching it over and over,” Cooks told Tim Graham of TheAthletic.com. “But I knew, as a father, that I had to put it away. If I’d have kept watching, it would have put me in some type of mood that my wife and my kids didn’t deserve.”
The NFL has confirmed that the official’s call of an interception was correct, but Cooks thinks he had possession and was down before McMillian got the ball from him.
“I will continue to process it until I get back on the field,” Cooks said, “but I think the biggest thing I can say is that I still feel like it was a catch. After it happened, seeing some of the so-called controversial calls that were called a catch, I just had to turn the playoffs off because I’m like, ‘Yo, what is going on?’ For me, the way that my mind operates is, ‘OK, what can I do about it?’ And what I can do about it is get back on the field, continue to work on being the best that I can be and making sure next time it’s a catch-and-run for a touchdown and leave it in no one else’s hands.”
If Cooks had completed the catch, the Bills would have spent the next week preparing to face the Patriots in the AFC Championship Game, not firing head coach Sean McDermott. The Bills might have gone to the Super Bowl, and Josh Allen certainly would have given the Patriots’ defense a tougher test than Broncos backup quarterback Jarrett Stidham gave New England in the AFC Championship. And Broncos quarterback Bo Nix would have gone into the offseason healthy rather than spending the offseason rehabbing the broken ankle that he suffered just before the Broncos’ game-winning field goal.
These are thoughts Cooks has often.
“It doesn’t keep me up or give me unhealthy flashbacks,” Cooks said. “But from a competitive nature, I still think about not winning the Super Bowl as if it happened yesterday.”
The Broncos’ playoff overtime win against the Bills could have gone very differently, if a play Broncos coach Sean Payton called had actually been run.
Payton said after the game that he called a fake punt on fourth-and-11 in overtime, only to have the players change it at the line of scrimmage and run a normal punt.
A lengthy ESPN article about Payton details how he spent hours studying fake punts and found one he liked that the Raiders once ran. The Broncos adopted that Raiders play in their own special teams playbook and referred to as Rutgers Special because the ball would have gone to the upback, Michael Burton, who played at Rutgers.
The Broncos never actually ran Rutgers Special in the divisional playoffs against the Bills, but Payton confirmed after the game that he told his punt team to run it at the end of the first possession of overtime, on fourth-and-11 at their own 38-yard line. If the Broncos had failed, the Bills would have taken over only needing a field goal to win the game, and already being in range for a long field goal. It was a massive risk Payton was taking by making that call, but Payton has called risky special teams plays in big situations before, most famously the surprise onside kick he called as head coach of the Saints in their Super Bowl XLIV win over the Colts.
It’s not clear what the Broncos’ players saw at the line of scrimmage that made them call the fake off and punt the ball instead. But Payton described a fake as “Worth the risk” when the alternative was punting the ball to Josh Allen, and Payton added, “We had the right look.”
As it turned out, Allen threw an interception on the possession after the punt, and the Broncos drove into field goal range and kicked the game-winner to advance to the AFC Championship Game. We’ll never know what might have happened if the players had run the fake punt that Payton wanted.
A new article from Seth Wickersham of ESPN takes a look at Broncos coach Sean Payton’s hectic week before the AFC Championship. While taking a look at it, one thing stood out.
After the Patriots fired coach Bill Belichick following the 2023 season, Payton (who had just finished his first year with the Broncos) “considered suggesting” to owner Greg Penner that Payton would step back to the position of assistant head coach, running the offense. Belichick would hold the job until he won 15 games, breaking Don Shula’s all-time record of 347.
Belichick has 333 total wins, 14 behind Shula. (As regular-season wins go, Shula has 26 more than Belichick: 328 to 302.)
Wickersham explains that, "[i]n the end, it was too complicated — and maybe too fanciful.”
It was, as we understand it, Payton simply thinking out loud. It would have been practically impossible, but he at least formulated the thought out of his respect for Belichick.
Ultimately, it may have been the only way for Belichick to catch Shula. With only one NFL interview in three hiring cycles (including a 2026 turnover that had 10 open jobs), Belichick’s NFL door seems to be closed.
In November 2025, Von Miller said he didn’t regret choosing the Commanders over the Seahawks. He declared at the time he’d make the same decision “10 times out of 10.”
He probably wouldn’t make it 11 times out of 11.
Appearing on the 89 podcast with Steve Smith and James Palmer, via Jacob Camenker of USA Today, Miller said of his decision: “Obviously, I picked the wrong team on that one.”
Although some are aggregating the quote in a way that frames it as a diss of the Commanders, the sentiment would have applied to any of the other 30 teams in the NFL. With a choice between the Seahawks and any other team, the Seahawks were the right call.
But, as always, hindsight is 20/20 vision.
“For me, with the Washington Commanders, I just felt like Jayden Daniels was poised for another great season,” Miller said. “His rookie season went all the way to the NFC Championship, and last year, he got hit with injuries, not just at the quarterback position, but all over the place. And those are some of the things that you just can’t calculate on teams.”
Miller now laments the fact that he missed the chance to win three Super Bowls with three different teams. He won a ring (and the Super Bowl MVP award) with Denver in 2015. Six years later, he won a second ring after an in-season trade to the Rams.
To Miller’s credit, he didn’t agitate to be traded or released once it became clear that the Commanders weren’t going to get back to the playoffs.
His plans for 2026 remain unknown. He said in January he’d like to stay in D.C.
In March, Miller said he’d like to return to the Broncos, if he doesn’t re-sign with the Commanders. In late May, Miller was lobbying for the Broncos.
Hopefully, he won’t have two options again — if the one he doesn’t pick ends up winning the Super Bowl.
The Broncos showed how much they think of cornerback Ja’Quan McMillian by using a second-round tender on him as a restricted free agent. He will make $5.767 million on his one-year deal this season.
His long-term future with the Broncos appeared in question, with Marvin Mims Jr., Riley Moss, Ben Powers, Evan Engram and Brandon Jones among other high-profile players entering the final year of their contracts.
The Broncos had not started contract talks with McMillan’s camp as of June, per Zac Stevens of DNVR, but coach Sean Payton left no doubt about the team’s intent to keep McMillan long-term.
“Absolutely,” Payton said, via Stevens. “The ball finds him. We keep talking about taking it away. We even forget Buffalo on the road, Monday night [in] ’23. The first series of the game, ball’s out, and he’s causing a fumble. He’s just around it all. That’s not just good fortune. That’s the skill set.”
Since 2023, when he earned a bigger role, McMillan has six interceptions, five forced fumbles and two fumble recoveries. Two of his interceptions were pick-sixes. He also has seven sacks, 16 tackles for a loss and nine quarterback hits.
“He has all the things you’re looking for,” Payton said. “Like when I say grit, chip on his shoulder.”
The NFL is making a significant change to the offseason calendar for the 2027 season.
Tom Pelissero of NFL Media reports that the free agent negotiating window will open on March 9 next year. That is the same date that the two-day window opened this year, but the change comes in how close it will be to the end of the Scouting Combine.
NFL teams will wrap up their examinations and interrogations of incoming prospects on March 8 in 2027, which moves the league away from having a week or so between the two events as they have in past years.
Under that setup, the Combine has always been rife with table-setting for free agency as agents and team executives are all in the same place with their minds on the same things. With that gap eliminated, there will likely be even more of that work being done in Indianapolis so that teams are ready to make moves right from the starting gun.
As Netflix expands its NFL footprint to include a full five toes of NFL games in 2026, it’s hoping to enhance its desire to “eventize” football with some normalcy.
Elle Duncan of Netflix tells the Sports Media Watch podcast that the studio show for the games will have the same people involved.
“We’re not doing an 18-game slate,” Duncan said, via Derek Futterman of Sports Media Watch. “We want every single one of our events to, yes, have a through-line and some consistency, and you’ll get that with the desk and the talent, but, ‘How are we making each one of those things feel special and different and honor where we’re doing it at?’”
Netflix will stream the Week 1 game from Australia between the 49ers and Rams, the Thanksgiving Eve game between the Packers and Rams in L.A., two Christmas games (Packers-Bears and Bills-Broncos), and a Saturday afternoon game to launch Week 18.
Officially, Netflix doesn’t aspire to have a full, season-long NFL broadcast package. However, with its current arrangement in place through 2029, Netflix could eventually decide to make a bid on one of the various weekly windows.
