Sean Payton recognizes Super Bowl XXXIII, looks ahead to this weekend’s matchup

The Denver Broncos are preparing for a competition against the Washington Commanders, which will take place Sunday 9/17 at 2:25pm MT.

Sean Payton confirmed that Jerry Jeudy WILL be playing on Sunday, as he’s been “full all week,” and the team plans on wearing their white jerseys in honor of their Alumni Weekend and the 25th anniversary of Super Bowl XXXIII.

On the note of SBXXXIII — as well as OLB DeMarcus Ware being honored this weekend — Payton shared some sentiments.

Describing himself as a “big DeMarcus fan,” he said, “I’ve got plenty of stories. Tremendous player. Pretty unbelievable career. Two franchises got to benefit from his skillset. He was rare.”

And regarding the Super Bowl, the head coach said he remembers the game well. “Obviously, it was a dominant performance. That stretch of three years was really—when you start looking at the numbers, pretty unbelievable.”

It’s not all celebration for what’s behind us, though. Looking ahead to this weekend’s game, Payton revealed the “go make a play” strategy he uses, and how it applies to the Commanders this weekend.

“When you hear that term, ‘Go make a play,’ though, there’s more to that. ‘Go make a play.’ Alright, how? What’s the play?” There’s a combination of a number of things,” he described, adding, “I like what we did. We get back to work this week, and here we go. Different defense, different structure. The same way on the flip side. We get ready to play this game.”

Payton also noted that he believes a lot of team improvement must take place between weeks one and two, and that we’re hopefully going to see that on Sunday.

“I just finished talking to them. The first four weeks, we’re in this urgent race to improve, so hopefully that’s the case,” he shared, “I think it’s critical...three different times we started with a loss and then went 13-3.”

“You are in this race to get better in the first quarter poll of the season,” he concluded.