Tonight, the Broncos will go for their 13th win of the season. It’s something coach Sean Payton has accomplished four times in his tenure with the Saints.
Barring what would be one of the biggest upsets of the year, the two-touchdown-favored Broncos will get there. And Payton will join former Browns and Patriots coach Bill Belichick as the only coaches with five 13-win seasons.
Payton has a bigger goal that would be unprecedented. No coach has won a Super Bowl with two different franchises. And the Broncos, if they win out, will be the No. 1 seed in the AFC, putting them a pair of home games from getting to Santa Clara, for the first Super Bowl played there since the last time the Broncos won it.
Payton previously did it in 2009, 2011, 2018, and 2019. Belichick did it seven times: 2003, 2004, 2007, 2010, 2011, 2016, and 2017.
Several coaches have taken two teams to a Super Bowl — Don Shula, Bill Parcells, Dan Reeves, Dick Vermeil, Mike Holmgren, John Fox, and Andy Reid. None has ever won it with two different teams.
And every coach who has won a Super Bowl with one team before moving on to another team is well aware of the fact that no one has won it with two franchises.
Others current coaches have a shot over the balance of their careers to win a Super Bowl with a second team include Nick Sirianni (if he ends up with another team), Reid (if he ends up with a third team), Sean McVay (if he coaches a different team at some point), Belichick (if he makes his way back to the NFL and it goes far differently than his year at UNC), Pete Carroll, and John Harbaugh and Mike Tomlin (if either or both make a fresh start in the coming years).
Jon Gruden also has a shot, if he returns to coach a team other than the Buccaneers.
For now, Payton has the best opportunity to do it, sooner than later.
