Walking into the 2025 season, Denver’s HC Sean Payton was just two wins away from tying Bill Parcells’ record of 172 regular-season wins. A victory against the Tennessee Titans in Week 1 and two consecutive losses later, the Week 4 game against the Cincinnati Bengals offered another opportunity… only this time, Payton grabbed it with both hands. 

Denver didn’t just win the game, but absolutely dominated at home on Monday (28-3). With that, Payton tied with Parcells for the 16th most regular-season wins in NFL history. And not often do you see a 61-year-old getting choked up, but Payton briefly let his emotions take over as he reflected on what that personally meant to him.

“He’s a pretty big influence on what I have been able to achieve. I’m sure we’ll talk at some point this week,” Payton revealed. “We talk pretty frequently. He’s [Parcells] paying most of his attention to the horses.

“There was an early point in my career where I thought I was going to be a head coach. But coaching with him for three years allowed me to have success in being a head coach.”

Sean Payton’s story about taking shape under Bill Parcells’ coaching tree has one too many beginnings. It was Christmas night of 2002, when Payton received the first phone call. At the time, news about Parcells’ not-so-secret meeting with Jerry Jones spread. Parcells was coming out of retirement to coach the Dallas Cowboys, and Payton, who was the Giants’ OC then, knew the call would be the most important one in his life. 

A series of conversations followed, but ultimately, Parcells went on to hire Payton to be his assistant head coach and quarterbacks coach. It was a quick 60-second conversation on the dot. They, however, hadn’t met in person just yet. Their first meeting happened to be on the flight from Long Island to Dallas, where they spoke football all the way.

And to his surprise, Parcells saw in him aggressive coaching tendencies that he hadn’t anticipated. ‘Dennis the Menace,’ Parcells would often call him, who went as far as laminating the practice playlist just so that Payton couldn’t add more to it.

All that said, it didn’t take both men much time to form a close bond. Payton, whose father had died in 1997, saw Parcells as a father figure. 

Likewise, Parcells considered Payton as one of his own and took it upon himself to guide him. In fact, back in 2004, Payton was convinced he needed to accept the Oakland Raiders’ head coaching job. He even purchased a black suit and a silver tie for the occasion. But Parcells knew it wasn’t the right time just yet. 

“You’re going to get your chance. This just isn’t the right one, kid,” he had advised. And Sean Payton obeyed.

Parcells’ wisdom proved to be sound. Payton became the Saints HC just a few years later and coached the team to victory at Super Bowl XLIV. But that’s just one of the highlights. In his 15 years there, Payton became the winningest coach in franchise history with 152 regular-season and nine playoff wins. He managed to lead the league in yards six times, in the top-5 ten times, and only ever dropping out of the top-10 twice.

The year he had it worst – 19th in 2021 – the HC saw his QBs, Jameis Winston and Trevor Siemian, injured mid-season while Ian Book failed to produce. Parcells often preached that the offensive line was the most crucial, and Payton seems to have stuck by it. 

Even as he joined the disastrous Denver, his first order of business was to get the O-line right. That meant signing guard Ben Powers and right tackle Mike McGlinchey. Come the next offseason, he wasn’t hesitant to pull the plug on Russell Wilson’s QB era in Denver. 

By Year 2, Payton had managed to turn the Broncos around. For the 2024 season, he led them to the playoffs for the first time since 2015. Mike Shanahan, the franchise’s winningest head coach, would go on to admit Payton was doing a ‘fantastic job’ with the team. And the records backed it. 

This season, Payton entered as the second-best returning head coach in the NFL as per  Pro Football Focus. His then .692 win percentage also predicted that he would enter November on a 9-3 record. But three weeks in, the offense was a work in progress. It took a month, but on Monday, Denver finally saw a confident Bo Nix in rhythm. Nix, with Payton at the helm, made everything seem possible: An AFC West title and, better yet, a playoff win.  

Payton had once said that getting to work with Parcells was a one-time window of opportunity. It really was.