NFL Combine buzz: Broncos adding offensive assistant from college ranks, source says

INDIANAPOLIS — Sean Payton’s coaching staff is rounding into form.

The Broncos head coach is expected to hire former Iowa State quarterback Kyle Kempt as an offensive assistant, a source told The Post on Thursday.

Kempt spent the 2025 season as Drake University’s offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach. Before that, he coached on Iowa State’s staff for seven seasons.

Kempt, an honorable mention All-Big 12 quarterback at Iowa State in 2017, is expected to serve in a quality control role in Denver.

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Payton’s offensive staff is likely nearing completion. Payton first promoted Davis Webb to offensive coordinator and Logan Kilgore to quarterbacks coach. Then he hired Ronald Curry to coach receivers and now has added Kempt as a young, up-and-coming coach, too.

Defensively, the Broncos have added defensive backs coach Doug Belk and could still be in the process of adding another coach to the staff.

Broncos met with former HC last week

Denver could soon be adding another former ally of Payton — and of general manager George Paton — to its staff, too.

The Broncos had former Vikings head coach Mike Zimmer in the facility last week, a source confirmed to The Denver Post. Zimmer, 69, hasn’t coached in the NFL since serving as the Cowboys’ defensive coordinator in 2024, but served as the Vikings’ head coach from 2015-2021. Denver spoke to Zimmer about a potential senior-advisor role on staff, but nothing’s been finalized, the source said.

Zimmer went 72-56-1 in his eight seasons in Minnesota, where he worked alongside Paton in the front office, who was then the Vikings’ assistant general manager under GM Rick Spielman. Before he helmed the Vikings, meanwhile, Zimmer spent three years from 2003 to 2005 as the Cowboys’ defensive coordinator under head coach Bill Parcells — flanked by then-offensive-coordinator Payton. The longtime NFL coach is one of the few points of historical NFL staff overlap between Payton and Paton, and now could join them in Denver’s building .

Zimmer’s had plenty of recent in-state ties, too, coming over to Colorado as a part of Deion Sanders’ staff in 2023 after spending a year with him at Jackson State in 2022.

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from The Denver Post https://ift.tt/07ROvl1