Sean Payton's latest stunt proves that Raiders-Broncos is the hottest AFC West rivalry

For too long, the Chiefs have dominated AFC West headlines. It's been a half-decade long parade full of Patrick Mahomes throws and Travis Kelce podcasts and Andy Reid's Hawaiian shirts. Meanwhile, the rest of the division has quietly sat around, losing 9 games a year and generally forcing TV executives to abandon the Chiefs' divisional games in favor of, like, the Jets. But reader, we might be back.

And only to the least possible extent we have to, we should thank Sean Payton. Now that the Broncos coach can no longer trade on Drew Brees' name, he's spending the back nine of his coaching career trying to convince everyone that he can do the same for Bo Nix. In fact, he was so invested in landing Nix back in the draft, he went out of his way to try and trick the Raiders in the process. I told you we're back.

Sean Payton seems very proud of having comically bad draft instincts

In a recent appearance on The Athletic's 'Scoop City' podcast, Payton talked about how the team ended up taking Nix, and what sort of shenanigans they tried to pull off ahead of the pick.

"There were a few other teams that saw it the same way," Payton said in regards to where Nix would get drafted. "We stopped the tape, and I said, 'George, I'm just going to say this: we're not the only ones seeing it this way.' You try to simulate what you think's going to happen.

"We thought that the Giants were going to be an at-large team, not necessarily for Bo, but at quarterback ... Then the Jets were on the clock, and I said to George, 'Just call them. We don't want them to move up unnecessarily one or two picks, I don't want anything happening like Kansas City. Then it was like, call the Raiders and tell them we want to move back. They didn't want to move up."

So, to be clear: Sean Payton was worried that the Giants would take a quarterback, which the Giants did not do. After that he was concerned that the Jets would move off the 11th overall pick, which the Jets did not do. And finally, Payton tried to bait the Raiders into trading up one spot for a QB, which the Raiders did not do.

Sean Payton: he's still got it!