The Denver Broncos struggled heavily on offense last season, which they hope will be fixed with the hiring of former New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton. Payton has always been known as a great offensive mind, and one receiver on the Broncos has been studying Payton’s offense to mimic Payton’s former top receiver, Michael Thomas.
Thomas had great success within Payton’s offense while the two were together, notably setting the still-standing single-season record for receptions in 2019.
Former Pro Bowl receiver Courtland Sutton had a down year last season, but he revealed that he is looking to get back on track by learning from Thomas’s role within Payton’s system.
“It’s interesting, I just got Michael Thomas’ 2019 targets from his year that he broke the record,” Sutton said via Aric Delalla of the Broncos team website. “I’m just diving into it to be able to see how he may have run a route that we are learning right now. Figuring out ways to get open.
“Obviously he had a really good year that year, so to be able to find ways to implement the things he did well into my game, I feel like we’ll be able to have a lot of success.”
It may be a bit far-fetched for Sutton to have the kind of impact that Thomas had in 2019, but he certainly needs to be a far more reliable option for star quarterback Russell Wilson this season.
The offense’s struggles as a whole last season led to discussions of Sutton potentially being on the trade block last season. If he wants to carve out a role in this new offense, looking at Michael Thomas’s film seems like a good start.
