WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W. Va. — The Green­bri­er Resort sits on 11,000 acres and fea­tures four golf cours­es, 20 din­ing options and one coach with an office. Sean Pay­ton helped design the foot­ball foot­print that led the New Orleans Saints to escape the heat, if not the inter­net, for three straight train­ing camps here begin­ning in 2014.

As Pay­ton rode around in his golf cart sur­vey­ing the grounds this week, often flanked by fam­i­ly and friends, it is clear why he loves West Virginia.

But with apolo­gies to John Den­ver, Payton’s “almost heav­en” almost nev­er hap­pened. As the Bron­cos pre­pare to face the New York Jets, it is fas­ci­nat­ing to con­sid­er the but­ter­fly effect when look­ing at the franchise’s his­to­ry over the past two years.

What if hir­ing Nathaniel Hack­ett would have result­ed in Den­ver acquir­ing Aaron Rodgers, as was the fin­gers-crossed hope when he took the job?

For starters, there would have been no Rus­sell Wil­son, no tox­ic pos­i­tiv­i­ty, no high knees, no cringey and spicy Sub­way com­mer­cials, no $245 mil­lion con­tract exten­sion — and no games that made the for­ward pass look more dif­fi­cult than nego­ti­at­ing peace in the Mid­dle East.

But Rodgers becom­ing a Bron­co would mean Hack­ett, the John C. Reil­ly to his Will Fer­rell, would still be in Den­ver. Say that sen­tence out loud and try not to laugh. Or cry.

It rais­es the ques­tion: What posi­tion would you rather be in Bron­cos Coun­try? Watch­ing a 40-year-old Rodgers lead your fran­chise with Hack­ett on the head­set? Or Pay­ton in charge of devel­op­ing Bo Nix as the key com­po­nent of a rebuild?

Even now, I don’t hes­i­tate, I would rather have Pay­ton and Nix. Not because I have con­fi­dence in this pair­ing, but because it mer­ci­ful­ly intro­duced a reset but­ton that should have been hit after the 2017 sea­son. The Wal­ton-Pen­ner group turned to Pay­ton after Jim Har­baugh stayed in Michi­gan and DeMe­co Ryans went to Hous­ton. He was charged with clean­ing up Hackett’s mess, trans­form­ing Sesame Street into Com­pete Street. Pay­ton cre­at­ed account­abil­i­ty, infused dis­ci­pline, but did not deliv­er the num­ber of wins antic­i­pat­ed in his first sea­son. An 8–9 record rep­re­sent­ed a three-game improve­ment but fell well short of the playoffs.

Prac­tic­ing beneath the rolling hills and chang­ing leaves in sog­gy West Vir­ginia, the Bron­cos believe they are find­ing trac­tion. Nix is com­ing off his best game, his first win.

“He plays with swag­ger,” right guard Quinn Mein­erz said. “Since the first day I met him, I was excit­ed to see how he was going to han­dle these moments and he has done noth­ing but con­sis­tent­ly exceed expectations.”

Pay­ton has asked too much of him — he ranks fourth in drop­backs — but the game is start­ing to slow down for Nix with his eyes and his feet. Progress is hap­pen­ing, an encour­ag­ing sign for Pay­ton, who des­per­ate­ly needs this to work. A reboot was need­ed. But if Nix fiz­zles, the Bron­cos will be hit­ting CTRL-ALT-DEL with a new coach after the 2025 or ’26 season.

Still, that risk out­weighs the Bron­cos fea­tur­ing Rodgers and Hack­ett right now. Or, more specif­i­cal­ly, Rodgers. Hack­ett is his side­car, hang­ing around to put gas in the tank and gas him up on com­mand. When Rodgers rides into town, he takes over every­thing. Would you be com­fort­able with him as the face of the Bron­cos, the voice on all top­ics, includ­ing, but not lim­it­ed to, cov­er-two defens­es, young receivers, UFOs, vac­cines, pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates and dark­ness retreats?

None of the con­spir­a­cy the­o­ry stuff would have mat­tered if Rodgers won. But that’s where the inflec­tion point comes for me. There is no doubt the Bron­cos would be bet­ter with Rodgers, even this ver­sion of him. He is a four-time MVP capa­ble of mak­ing throws not seen in Den­ver since John Elway retired.

But the Rodgers-Hack­ett duo only works over Pay­ton-Nix if the for­mer reach­es a Super Bowl. I would not hold them to the stan­dard of win­ning it, just get­ting there. That was nev­er going to hap­pen with the Kansas City Chiefs func­tion­ing as res­i­dent dream crushers.

So, how would you feel about a pair of 11–6 records and two play­off wins in three years, delay­ing the inevitable draft­ing of a rook­ie quar­ter­back? The floor would rise with Rodgers in Den­ver, health will­ing. But the ceil­ing wouldn’t be high enough. A few wild-card post­sea­son vic­to­ries are not worth wait­ing to start a youth move­ment. And even that would have like­ly come with con­sid­er­able con­ster­na­tion and dis­trac­tions because of the pos­si­bil­i­ty Rodgers would have still suf­fered the same cat­a­stroph­ic Achilles tear that sank his first sea­son in New York after four snaps.

Grant­ed, it feels like it would have been worth the pain, lit­er­al­ly and fig­u­ra­tive­ly, after eight straight years with­out a play­off berth and sev­en straight los­ing sea­sons. But, let’s con­sid­er the ram­i­fi­ca­tions. Rodgers exits fol­low­ing the 2025 sea­son with no title. After he retires, Hack­ett gets one sea­son with a bridge quar­ter­back and is exposed as a fraud and fired. That leaves the Bron­cos start­ing over in 2027 with a first-rounder under center.

The coun­ter­ar­gu­ment, of course, is that Rodgers would have become Pey­ton Man­ning: The Sequel, attract­ing free agents and win­ning a Super Bowl. The prob­lem with this think­ing is that Rodgers had the best team in the NFC mul­ti­ple times and has one ring and a sin­gle Super Bowl appear­ance. The idea of him exceed­ing expec­ta­tions at ages 40 and 41 doesn’t fit.

The Bron­cos cer­tain­ly saw the shape of their future change when Rodgers remained in Green Bay in the spring of 2022 with a new con­tract. They knew it was com­ing for a few weeks and quick­ly piv­ot­ed to Wil­son, a deci­sion that con­tin­ues to haunt them and their salary cap. Cou­pling him with Hack­ett cre­at­ed the worst duo since Lou Reed and Metallica.

Rodgers’ deci­sion to stay in Green Bay altered the tra­jec­to­ry of mul­ti­ple fran­chis­es. It changed Denver’s future. But in the end, Den­ver not acquir­ing him will allow Pay­ton and Nix an oppor­tu­ni­ty to escape the franchise’s ugly past for years to come.

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