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Jeff Legvold
LONDON — It exists as a line on Sean Payton’s football resume, a list that includes 173 regular season wins as an NFL coach, a Super Bowl win and multiple record-setting seasons on offense. But Payton’s coach was once Payton’s aspiring player – an Illinois Yankee in King Arthur’s court.
In 1988, he spent a six-month stint as a quarterback in England looking for one last chance to play the game that has since become his livelihood. Payton is making his third visit to England as head coach – this time with denver broncoswho faces New York Jets at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Sunday (9:30 AM ET, NFL Network) — but he was once a centre-back for Leicester Panthers.
“I was 23 years old,” Payton said. “Just out of college and basically playing for pizza because you enjoyed it. It’s been a good six months.”
Leicester is a city of approximately 370,000 in the East Midlands section of England, approximately 103 miles northwest of the Tottenham Hotspur stadium. Its sporting peak was the run to Leicester City F.C. 2015–16 Premier League title After facing £5,000-1 preseason odds.
In 1988, the Leicester Panthers were part of the Budweiser National League (the league is now called the British American Football Association). After Payton’s playing career at Eastern Illinois ended, in which he threw for over 10,000 yards, he played briefly as a replacement player for two Arena Football League teams, the Ottawa Rough Riders of the Canadian Football League and the Canadian Football League. Chicago Bears During the 1987 NFL players’ strike.
And he wondered what might happen next.
“I was in the Arena League, I was in the CFL…just ended up playing during [NFL] It was strike season and he was getting ready to go into coaching,” Payton said. “The then-owner [Leicester Panthers] Barry Wardley had been reached. … I remember my mom saying, ‘All your friends are getting married, and they have health insurance, and what are you doing?'”
At the time, each team in the BAFA – which consists of American football teams for adults and youth players throughout Great Britain – was allowed to sign a maximum of four American-born players. Payton, who wanted to play despite recently being released from the CFL, took a chance on a team he didn’t know existed in a city he had to see on the map.
Payton said he originally served as a player-coach for the Panthers, due to his extensive playing experience compared to his teammates and the fact that he played QB. This meant he and other American-born players had to make practice plans for teammates, often squeezing evening practices and weekend games around their day jobs.
“Practice would be at 5:30, so after everyone was done, we’d go for a couple of hours,” Payton said. “For him, it was the love of the game and the four [American-born players] Lived in a house. We’d go to work out in the morning, play some golf, make exercise plans together. … He had all kinds of jobs, I’m telling you, from bouncers to construction.”
Most current Broncos were not aware of Payton’s late 1980s European junket. As the Broncos finished practice at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium this week, the edge rusher was asked about jonathan cooper Could only frown.
“No, I didn’t know that,” Cooper said. “But that’s why he likes it here so much, he’s enjoying it.”
“He’s talked about his past football experience,” the Broncos wide receiver said. Courtland Sutton Added. “The biggest thing is he always says he’s been dropped before… He likes to tell us he’s played before… But I think he likes to talk about his coaching experience more than his playing experience. [But] It’s good that he played here in the 80s, shooting.”
At the end of the 1988 regular season, Payton finally faced a fork in the road in his career. He tried to pursue a possible opportunity to become a graduate assistant for a college team while in England, and San Diego State called him back.
But Payton has said that the offer came with a condition – he had to be in San Diego in three days. So, after a transatlantic flight to Chicago and a car repair in Denver, Payton began his coaching career with the Aztecs.
“It’s easiest to just say you want to play until everyone tells you to go home,” Payton said. “So, I got to the point where everyone told you to go home and then it was like, ‘Okay, I don’t want to leave. [the game]What else can be done?’ My father would wear a suit to work every day, get dressed up, take the bus, take the train to the city, and I knew I didn’t want to do that.”
After Wednesday’s practice, Payton said he hoped some of his former Leicester teammates would be able to attend Friday’s Broncos practice. Four of them did so and the Broncos also hosted the Panthers’ under-17 team.
“There weren’t a lot of Americans [in 1988],” Payton said. “We were treated very well…I think [I have] A jersey somewhere, photos. But more importantly, again, not the physical, it’s all the memories. That’s what was the best part about it.”
