In 2014, the Greenbrier resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia put together in short order an NFL-caliber practice facility for the Saints and head coach Sean Payton. Soon, the Greenbrier will welcome Payton’s new team to town.
The Broncos will stay there between Week 3 and Week 4 road games, at the Buccaneers and at the Jets.
“Before we get the assignments, when we see a series of East Coast games, we’ll put in a request for two of the East Coast games to be back-to-back,” Payton told reporters this week. “When the schedule came out, then it happened to be Tampa and the Jets. It could’ve been Baltimore. The reason we put the request in is just to stay in that time zone, practice and then be more acclimated relative to back-and-forth four different times.”
Payton said the Broncos considered “a handful of places” before settling on the place where the Saints held camp for three years.
“It was just going to be dependent on who the back-to-back teams were,” he said. “I do like being away for a week with the team. In other words, when [we] traveled to London, those are times that you get a little bit better focus I think and you can grow as a team.”
That’s the benefit of taking the team on the road for a week. While it’s a sacrifice for the player and his family, the players can bond.
Especially at the Greenbrier, where they might have to stick even closer together. Given the poltergeists.
