FOX Sports’ Mark Schlereth Talks Broncos, Raiders, Cowboys, Pats, More w/Rich

Sean Payton handed the Denver play sheet to Davis Webb, and according to Mark Schlereth, there is no clause in that arrangement that lets him take it back.

Schlereth, the three-time Super Bowl champion who lives in Denver and is at practice every day, told Rich he spent 45 minutes in Payton's office about six weeks ago and asked directly. "I've given him the play calling duties and I'm not taking him back," Schlereth said Payton told him. "All the good plays will be his, all the bad plays will be mine." Then the part that leaves no wiggle room: "I am not, and I repeat, I am not taking play calling duty away from Davis Webb. It won't happen."

That is a head coach redesigning his own job. Payton wants to be more of a CEO overseeing the entirety of the football team, and Bo Nix has said the change created a different relationship between them, one where Payton offers pointers rather than the whole call sheet.

Webb sold Schlereth in a long conversation of his own. The new play caller wants five northstar plays that hold up against any defense and any look, with adjunct plays built off them for critical situations.

"We won back-to-back championships in Denver and we ran six freaking plays," Schlereth said, calling it the 10,000-hour rule. "I've done them 10,000 times. You've defended them 200 times. I'm better than you and I'm going to whip your ass."

Denver's ceiling, in his read, is not a quarterback question. "This Broncos team depthwise, I think arguably is the best team in football," Schlereth said, citing the offensive line, the offseason addition of Jaylen Waddle, a backfield of JK Dobbins and Jonah Coleman, a secondary he calls the best in football and a defensive line rotation he calls exceptional. The one soft spot is production from Evan Engram.

Rich walked him through the opening stretch anyway: the Chiefs in Kansas City on Monday night, then Jacksonville, the Rams, a trip to San Francisco, the Chargers and Seattle on a Thursday. Schlereth would take 3-3 and could live with 2-4, and he had a dry read on how a team earns that. "14 and three, AFC Championship game. Congratulations. Here's your schedule."

New England drew real skepticism. Asked whether the Patriots might step back after reaching the Super Bowl, Schlereth kept circling Stefon Diggs, the third-down machine who ran the underneath routes and kept drives alive. New England spent a year praising how he prepared, Schlereth noted, and then, "One year's enough for us. See you around." A.J. Brown is a beast on the edge, but Brown, as Schlereth sees it, plays a different position.

Baltimore gets new energy on the sideline and still has Lamar Jackson, whose climb from majority runner to a quarterback eviscerating people from the pocket is, in Schlereth's words, a case study.

Joint practices came up with fines just levied on the Saints and Cowboys for fighting and Saquon Barkley on record saying, "I hate joint practice." Schlereth is the opposite. He had two with the Steelers and one with the Jets as a rookie and calls the work exceptional. He just cannot explain the brawls. "Maybe we just didn't have the energy to fight."

Which team is underdiscussed? The Cowboys defense, he said, pointing at the Von Miller signing and Caleb Downs, a positionless piece he compared to Derwin James and Kyle Hamilton. In Las Vegas, Schlereth would start Kirk Cousins for five or six games, then move to Fernando Mendoza, who answered a pick six by leading a scoring drive.