Sean Keeler: Broncos icon Terrell Davis salutes Sean Payton for saying quiet part out loud

Sean Keeler, The Denver Post on Aug 12, 2025

Published in Football

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DENVER — After those first three drives in Santa Clara, Calif., I was ready to Nix all this Super Bowl yapping. But If Sean Payton still Bo-lieves in this Broncos roster, that’s plenty good enough for Terrell Davis.

“You don’t think Mike Shanahan wasn’t in those team meeting rooms telling us that we’re a Super Bowl team? Yes, he was,” Davis, the Broncos icon and Hall of Fame running back, told me earlier this week at Foothills Golf Course. “Now, if you say it, if some coaches say it, even the players don’t believe it, let’s be honest. When Sean says it? You listen.

“You believe what he’s telling you because he’s drawing from his experience. He’s seen what Super Bowl teams look like. So I’m taking a lot of stock when my coach says, ‘I’ve seen six or seven teams that were Super Bowl-contending teams. This is one of them.’ Man, I’m taking that to the bank.”

The problem isn’t saying the quiet part out loud. Did Payton have to scream it?

Shanahan writing it on a white board is one thing. Payton telling Yahoo Sports the 2025 Broncos are “capable of winning the Super Bowl” is the sort of neon sign they can read from Prairie Village, Kan., to Palisades Park.

Bo Nix, the Broncos’ second-year quarterback, got chucked into the deep end by Payton last fall. Paxton Lynch sank. Drew Lock and Brett Rypien were eaten by sharks. Nix swam Denver back to the playoffs for the first time since Peyton Manning retired.

Now, after just 18 NFL starts, you’re asking him to beat Michael Phelps to the other end of the pool and back?

“Bo’s not on the team by himself,” Davis countered. “Everybody’s on the team.

“You have to understand, (the ’90s Broncos) went three years where we were the hunted. Did we care about the pressure? Yeah, we knew there was pressure there. Pressure is an interesting word. Sometimes it’s self-produced. Sometimes it comes from the public. But you play a pro sport. Why wouldn’t you expect to win a Super Bowl? And it’s OK if people know that’s what your intentions are.

“Last I checked, the Chiefs were expecting to win the Super Bowl the last five, six years. I don’t see them folding and crumbling under the pressure.”

Sunshine Sean’s schtick reminds TD of the Broncos’ leap under Shanahan from 8-8 in 1995 to 13-3 in 1996. The rest is Mile High history: Davis, 52, helped John Elway carry Denver to back-to-back Super Bowl victories in 1997 and 1998. The California native ran for 1,750 yards and 15 scores for the 12-4 Broncos in 1997, then took home NFL MVP honors in ’98 after 2,008 regular-season rushing yards and 23 scores.

This past Monday, TD teamed up with a different legend, World Golf Hall of Famer Annika Sorenstam, to promote Bank of America’s “Golf with Us” youth clinic at Foothills.

Roughly 100 kids beat the heat to tee off with Davis and Sorenstam. “Golf with Us,” which aims to lower the barriers of entry via rounds priced at $5 or less, had more than 1,500 Colorado kids registered as of Tuesday.

“Golf and football mimic life,” Davis said. “And it’s the same things that I talk to my kids about. If you want to do something, there’s a certain amount of work you have to put in to get that.

“You also have to realize you’ve got to be resilient. Because when you go on that tee box, you tee off, you hit that ball, and then the first drive goes left and it’s out of bounds, you’ve got to be able to wipe all those thoughts out and be like, ‘I’ve got to reset. I can’t worry about that. I’ve got to be able to bounce back.’ It’s the same thing in sports, same thing in life. So it rewards those who bounce back quickly. That’s what golf is all about.”

Like golf, the shortest path in getting from good to great in the AFC West runs between the ears. Which is why TD thinks Payton’s madness could play out like a stroke of genius.

Those 10 wins last year might be banked in the hearts of Broncos Country forever. To the rest of the league, they don’t carry over. You’re 0-0, baby. You need a new mission. A new mantra.

“I love the fact that (Payton) said that,” Davis said. “I love the fact, man. The difference between the team we had in ’95 and ’96 (was) the way we thought. Our mentality was the only thing that changed from the year before.”