{"id":436472,"date":"2026-01-29T07:54:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T07:54:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/436472\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T07:54:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T07:54:10","slug":"joe-lombardi-on-his-firing-its-part-of-the-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/436472\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Lombardi on his firing: It\u2019s part of the business"},"content":{"rendered":"

Broncos head coach Sean Payton fired offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi on Tuesday. Lombardi spent 15 years with Payton \u2014 12 in New Orleans and the past three in Denver.<\/p>\n

The move caught many by surprise, but not Lombardi.<\/p>\n

\u201cSean decided to move on, and I guess that\u2019s all there is to say<\/a>,\u2019\u2019 Lombardi told Chris Tomasson of The Denver Gazette. \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s ever a surprise [in the NFL]. Not really. . . . I think you could tell he was in one of those moods where he felt like some changes needed to be made, and I guess he decided one of those was me. So I\u2019ve been around him long enough to kind of read the tea leaves, I guess.\u201d<\/p>\n

The move was likely made to retain assistant Davis Webb, the team\u2019s passing game coordinator and quarterbacks coach, from leaving. Webb is a popular offensive coordinator candidate for teams in the market, and the Broncos want to keep him.<\/p>\n

Lombardi, 54, told Tomasson he did not feel like a scapegoat for the Broncos\u2019 loss in the AFC Championship Game.<\/p>\n

\u201cWell, we made it to the AFC Championship,\u2019\u2019 Lombardi said. \u201cI don\u2019t know why there needs to be a scapegoat, so I\u2019m not sure what I\u2019m being scapegoated for. I thought it was a good season. So, no, I didn\u2019t feel like that in any way. I just think he just wanted to go in another direction.\u201d<\/p>\n

Lombardi twice left as Payton\u2019s quarterbacks coach for an offensive coordinator job elsewhere. This, though, is the first time Payton has fired him. Lombardi called it \u201cpart of the business.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI mean, he employed me for a long time. I\u2019m appreciative of that,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Broncos head coach Sean Payton fired offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi on Tuesday. Lombardi spent 15 years with Payton…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":434671,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-436472","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/434671"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}