Did Sean Payton just guarantee the Broncos get to the Super Bowl?

Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton is not lacking confidence as his team prepares to face the New England Patriots in the AFC Championship Game. 

Though the Broncos are going into this game having to start a quarterback who hasn't thrown a regular-season pass in more than 750 days and the oddsmakers have made them 5.5-point underdogs, Payton is not backing down. 

Never one to shy away from big, bold statements, Payton, while addressing the Denver media on Wednesday, made a statement that could be seen as him guaranteeing a win over the Patriots. 

Sean Payton on a message to #Broncos fans this week: “They’re going to have a lot rest after this one. Two weeks.”

Payton's reference to his team getting two weeks' rest is, of course, in reference to the standard two weeks between the conference championship game and the Super Bowl. The Patriots are sure to hear about this. 

Payton is disliked in many NFL circles as he can be seen as arrogant and a bit full of himself. This is certainly a brash statement, but one made from a confident coach who fully believes he has the best team in the AFC. 

The Patriots could turn this into bulletin board material, but they will be hard-pressed to have more on their board than the Broncos, who have been overlooked and disrespected all season as "frauds" and overrated. 

Few people predicted that the Broncos, with a second-year quarterback in Bo Nix (who is also severely underrated) were good enough to overcome the Kansas City Chiefs and win that division. They did that with ease. No one would have predicted that they would be the No. 1 seed in the AFC and would knock Josh Allen and his Buffalo Bills out of the playoffs, but that happened. 

Now, the Broncos are nearly a touchdown underdog in a stadium where they have lost just one time in the last 15 months. Perhaps Payton has grown tired of the perceived disrespect and is ready to publicly discuss how good he thinks his team can be. 

READ: Broncos looking to keep Patriots from breaking a certain playoff curse in AFC Championship

This can be a good thing. This can motivate the team to rally behind their confident coach. Those who feel that New England is going to come into Denver, where they have never won in the postseason, and roll over the Broncos, just because Jarrett Stidham is the quarterback, are going to have another thing coming. 

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