Broncos HC Sean Payton may have sacrificed Joe Lombardi in an effort to keep rising staff member from the rest of the NFL
The Denver Broncos fired offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi, and their reason why couldn’t be any clearer.
The Denver Broncos are fresh off of a disappointing loss in the AFC Championship game, falling to the New England Patriots in a 10-7 game hampered by a snowstorm.
The snow wasn’t the only thing cold in Denver, as Broncos’ head coach made the decision to fire offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi on Tuesday. While Lombardi doesn’t necessarily have the greatest reputation around the league, it’s still an unusual move for a team in the AFC Championship to fire their offensive coordinator, especially if it appears likely they would be Super Bowl bound if their starting quarterback played.
However, the reason why Payton made the move is abundantly clear, and it has little to do with Lombardi’s on-field results.
Joe Lombardi firing paves the way to keep Davis Webb
Broncos’ passing game coordinator & quarterbacks coach Davis Webb has been a hot name around league circles for years. However, the 2026 coaching cycle has seriously generated the most interest in him league-wide, and seemingly every team with a head coach opening has interviewed him to try and get him in the building.
Webb leaping up to positional coach to head coach seems rather unlikely, given the large leap in responsibilities, but it serves as a testament to his perception across the league. It seems much likelier those interviews were to gauge him as a potential offensive coordinator hire.
However, Denver’s latest move to fire Joe Lombardi was a shrewd move, and could put paid to those efforts. If/When the Broncos promote Webb to fill his shoes, they can block any team from trying to hire Webb as their offensive coordinator, play caller or not. NFL rules consider any involvement as offensive coordinator as a lateral movement, regardless of if a coordinator calls plays or not. Thus, if a team wants to hire Webb this cycle, they would have to hire him as head coach.
With just three teams left looking for a head coach (Cleveland Browns, Las Vegas Raiders, and the Arizona Cardinals), the odds of Webb being hired away grow slimmer and slimmer. He has been a strong candidate for the Raiders, but there’s a growing sense that the Raiders are content to wait for a certain Seattle Seahawks coordinator to be done with his Super Bowl run.
Why Davis Webb?
Webb is a fairly “green” NFL coach, as he’s essentially only coached for just three seasons in the NFL. However, league sources have told me that Webb is wired similarly to Sean McVay, and he’s constantly tinkering with the offense to continue evolving it and improving his process and the “whys” of his offense.
He’s a very strong teacher as well, and his tutelage has been invaluable to both Daniel Jones and Bo Nix in his career. At just 30-years-old, Webb is one of the league’s brightest minds. It’s no surprise that Sean Payton wouldn’t want to let that go, particularly to a divisional rival in Vegas.
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