Sean Payton reportedly weighed a scheme built around Bill Belichick, Don Shula’s win record, and Miami’s historic rout

Less than three years after the Miami Dolphins posted a 70-20 victory over the Denver Broncos on Sept. 24, 2023, a new report suggests that the emotional aftertaste lingered for Broncos coach Sean Payton. According to the account cited by Yahoo Sports, Payton’s disdain for that day went so far that he considered an elaborate “revenge” plan aimed at Miami’s fanbase and organization history, using Bill Belichick as the centerpiece.

In the scenario described, Payton allegedly contemplated stepping aside at the start of the 2024 season so that Denver could hire Belichick as head coach. The condition, as described in the report, would have been tied to the NFL’s most storied coaching benchmark: Don Shula’s career wins record. Shula’s standing is cited with 347 total victories, and the report places Belichick just behind, with 333 wins coming into the situation it discusses.

The mechanics of the plan, as outlined, were intentionally structured around timing and record-breaking. The account states that Payton would have resumed his duties only after Belichick reached 15 wins, enough to eclipse Shula’s total and set a new all-time mark for head-coaching victories. The reported idea is less about a traditional coaching change and more about using an entrenched historical milestone as leverage in a long-running rivalry of results and memory.

The context matters because Miami and Denver have, in the report’s framing, gone in opposite directions since that 2023 matchup. Yahoo Sports characterizes the Dolphins’ 70-point outburst as a defining moment for their supporters, while describing Denver’s trajectory as being shaped by an ankle injury to quarterback Bo Nix that, according to the article, came up just as the team approached last season’s Super Bowl picture. Miami, meanwhile, is described as beginning yet another rebuild attempt this offseason.

For Dolphins fans, the 70-20 game is remembered as a statement performance, but the report’s emphasis is on what the victory represented to the other sideline. Payton’s reported willingness to turn the coaching carousel into a record-driven revenge narrative illustrates how NFL decisions are sometimes shaped by more than X-and-O strategy, even when the public justification is always football-first. It also underscores how much weight NFL history, especially record-setting legacies, still carries in the sport’s power dynamics.

There is a clear caveat in how to treat this story. It is a report of intentions and considerations attributed to Payton, not an official statement describing actions taken, and it hinges on a “what if” scenario. Without independent confirmation from team officials or league sources, the practical impact on Broncos’ staff planning should be viewed as speculative, even if the underlying rivalry context is concrete.

What to watch next is whether this kind of report changes how the Dolphins and Broncos narratives are discussed during the summer. Even if the revenge plan never left the imagination, the themes it invokes, Miami’s ability to dominate and Denver’s pursuit of quarterback stability and postseason footing, remain the most relevant competitive storylines heading toward the next phase of the season. The most immediate football question is still straightforward: can Denver translate its quarterback and roster decisions into consistent results, while Miami tries to build stability around its next iteration of team identity?