ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Sean Payton accused Mike Macdonald of cheating.
That’s what the Seattle Seahawks‘ head coach stated the Denver Broncos‘ head coach did in 2024.
On In Depth with Graham Bensinger, Macdonald revealed that leading up to the Broncos-Seahawks Week 1 game, Seattle found 100 of Denver‘s training camp plays posted online by fans and used them to scout Denver before their matchup.
“He got wind of it and lost it,” Macdonald said, talking about Payton. “It’s the middle of the season. And we won the game. He called John (Schneider) and he basically threatened to come out publicly and do a whole Patriot Spygate type of thing. And I’m sitting there like, ‘Oh My God, we didn’t cheat.’ He thought it was a Michigan thing where we had a plant and the whole thing. So we had to counter with him to like, say, ‘Hey look, if you come out with this, we’re going to sue you because it’s not true.'”
Shortly before Denver’s practice ended on Wednesday, Macdonald told reporters his story wasn’t “intended for public use” and thought he was just shooting the breeze before the interview actually started. Macdonald called Payton to apologize on Tuesday and Sean’s reaction to it was “great.”
“I respect the heck out of him and his program, always have,” Macdonald told reporters on Wednesday, talking about Payton. “He’s a phenomenal football coach, it’s been great to get to know him at the owners meetings the last couple of years. And he was awesome. I know we’re both looking forward to moving forward from it. I really appreciate how he handled it.”
Payton followed in Macdonald’s footsteps when addressing the situation after practice on Wednesday, stating their conversation the day before was “good.”
“We spoke. He and I are good,” Denver’s head coach said. “Lord knows, I’ve been in his position where you’re talking about something and—the story is three years ago. I don’t know Mike at that time really, but I know John Schneider really well. I’m sure my initial call to John wasn’t pleasant.”
In the initial video, Macdonald stated Payton was “killing” Schneider on their phone calls about this in 2024.
“I called shootin’ before I started looking,” Payton said with a laugh about his initial call with the Seahawks general manager. “I can only do that with John because that’s someone I’ll have a beer with at the combine. I consider him a good friend. It was eye opening relative to just, we’ve got to be better in this area.”
Payton did take a positive from the entire situation.
“I will say this, it allowed—talking with him—it allowed us to figure out how to handle our training camp relative to just videos. I don’t think anything was intentional by fans,” Payton added. “At first, you’re kind of thinking, ‘How could’—and then we did some research online of what was available and that’s kind of how we changed our policy. I’ve known John for 20 years. So it was an easy call to him. That’s really it.”
In recent years, the Broncos’ video guidelines for fans at training camp have been stricter.
Payton took the high road in the aftermath of the comments leaking. The Broncos will host the Seahawks in Week 6 on Thursday Night Football.
