Sean Payton reflects on first game he coached at Broncos stadium
In the final week of the 2023 preseason, new Broncos coach Sean Payton will coach his first home game for his new team, against the Rams. That reality prompted him to reflect on his involvement in the first ever regular-season home game played at the team's stadium — and the historic events that occurred the next day.
“I was here for the first game ever at this stadium," Payton said, in reference to the Week 1 game from 2001 between the Giants and Broncos, played on the night of September 10. "It was Monday Night Football. It was the day before 9/11. Giants versus Denver. I think Ed McCaffrey suffered a fractured leg in that game. After the game was over—back then, we didn’t really know the sleep study stuff. We flew back and landed in Newark around 7 a.m. Our normal protocol then would be just like here. We’d bus to the facility and the players would go home.
"The plane pulling out next to us was [United 93], the plane that went down in Pittsburgh. We got to the Giants’ stadium, the players went home, and we began working on Green Bay. That was who we were going to play. Shortly thereafter, on the news, we saw it. We actually climbed up the stadium. It was only really two miles, as the crow flies, across the river and there’s Manhattan. That was something you never forget. It was, I think, the first regular season game in this stadium."
Indeed it was. Twenty-two years ago. Denver beat the defending NFC champions, 31-20. The next morning, the world changed.
For some of us, it feels both like yesterday and 100 years ago.
