Mark Kiszla: Does Broncos Country believe in Sean Payton in the way everybody trusted John Elway?

Broncos coach Sean Payton has been gone from the Super Bowl for so long I wonder if he might have forgotten how to get back.

A year ago, all the heat of the NFL season in Denver was on quarterback Russell Wilson.

Now, the pressure switches to Payton.

After a season of huffing, puffing and tinkering, this is his team, built in his image with Bo Nix, a quarterback that Payton hand-picked in the NFL draft.

Don’t mess it up, boss.

“A really good motivating factor, not just in sport but all of us, is fear of failure. That’s pretty powerful,” Payton said Friday, as the Broncos put the finishing touches on preparation for their season-opener in Seattle.

Would this be a bad time to mention that although Nix won 43 times as a college quarterback, he departed his lone trip to Seattle as a member of the Oregon Ducks with a 36-33 loss last season to Washington?

Although Bo has generated nice buzz throughout the NFL as a rookie who appears mature beyond his years, the Broncos are not expected to make noise as a playoff contender. As it stands now, they might be favored only twice in 17 games, when the Raiders and Panthers visit Colorado.

“There’s a bit of pride in all of us in what we do,” Payton said. “Does winning feel greater than losing feels terrible?”

While the wise guys in Las Vegas have set the over/under victory total for the Broncos at 5.5, I’m setting the bar higher for Payton. If he could finish 8-9 during his debut season in Denver with Wilson, a quarterback the coach couldn’t wait to run out of town, shouldn’t anything less than eight victories with a QB that Payton likes be a letdown?

The vibe around this team is far different than a year ago. There was a buoyant first-day-of-school enthusiasm in the Denver locker room on Friday, with smiling players eager to get this thing started. The upbeat atmosphere was far different than the often eerily quiet and somber mood that afflicted this same space in 2023 after the Broncos lost five of six games to open the season and any visitor could sense a number of players looking toward the door, planning their exit strategies.

Hope has made a comeback at the team’s Dove Valley headquarters. But is it too much to wish this franchise’s eight-year nightmare is over, with these Broncos having more than a prayer to shock the league and make the playoffs?

To have a chance, the Broncos must be among the top 10 rushing teams in the league to lighten the burden on Nix. On the defensive side of the ball, the addition of defensive lineman John Franklin-Myers must prove to be of greater impact than the departure of safety Justin Simmons.

For the first time since Super Bowl 50, the Broncos truly feel like a franchise looking forward rather than trying to cling to past glory. And that’s refreshing. But what’s left to be discovered is how quickly Payton’s vision can be transformed into winning football in a division ruled by Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs.

The way Payton is trying to reinvent himself is unprecedented in the Super Bowl era. Yes, he led the New Orleans Saints to a championship. But that happened in a different era, way back in 2009. Fifteen years have come and gone.

Did New Orleans benefit from the best years of Payton’s career? Or is he still a coach at the cutting-edge of the sport?

It’s a fair question, because no coach in league history has won the Super Bowl 15 years apart. Yes, there was a decade gap between the third and fourth of six championships Bill Belichick won with New England, but he did it with the uninterrupted help of quarterback Tom Brady.

And if you want to hop in the way-back time machine to 1963, before the NFL and AFL merger, George Halas won the last of his championships with the Bears after 17 long years in pursuit of his eighth ring.

What Payton is attempting to do here in Broncos Country is nothing less than make himself legendary.

After accepting the gig in Denver, Payton was fond of saying that as a student of the game, he was well aware no NFL coach had ever won the Super Bowl with two different teams and the challenge stirred his competitive juices.

Don’t know about you, but for now, I’d settle for some substantial proof Payton knows how to pick a quarterback and build a playoff team from scratch.