Does Broncos running back Javonte Williams have enough glue to stick with a coach that views football as a zero-sum game?

If we’ve learned anything about Sean Payton during his 16 months as the coach in Denver, it’s either you’re one of his guys or you’re gone.

Quarterback Russell Wilson, safety Justin Simmons and kicker Brandon McManus collectively own 11 Pro Bowl selections and two Super Bowl rings. But that didn’t count for diddly to Payton, who sent all of them packing from the Broncos.

Whether he was spot-on or wrong in his evaluation of these three accomplished NFL veterans is not really the subject of debate in this space. What’s obviously true: Name recognition or the resume doesn’t matter. If a player fails to fit Payton’s long-term vision for the Broncos, it’s only a matter of time before he’s shown the door at the team’s Dove Valley headquarters.

As Payton re-invents the Broncos in his own image, this figures to be one of the more fascinating subplots in a season when nobody expects this team to make the NFL playoffs:

How much time does Williams have left in Denver?

And how much patience will Payton show Williams while the 24-year-old running back attempts to prove he can again be the rumbling rhino of a ball-carrier that ran over tacklers prior to his devastating knee injuries in 2022?

“I just do my job,” Williams said repeatedly Tuesday, no matter how many times or how many different ways he was asked to comment on the competition he faces at running back.

The Broncos drafted Notre Dame bruiser Audric Estime in the fifth round as a ball-carrier that not only looks like a replica of Williams, but a viable replacement. And anyone who saw the lightning no bottle can contain from rookie Jaleel McLaughlin a year ago has to wonder if getting him the ball in space might be the easiest way to make rookie quarterback Bo Nix look good.

Knee surgery the team believes is no more than a clean-up procedure will keep Estime off the field until training camp in July, so Williams stands as the prohibitive favorite to earn the majority of touches in the season opener at Seattle.

But it’s fair to wonder: Is Williams viewed more as part of this franchise’s sorry recent history or a brighter future?

While he strains to distance himself from the seven years of bad Broncos football that preceded his arrival, Payton never shies from revealing his fondness for players he hand-picked to join him in this orange-and-blue rebuilding project.

It matters not that the five-year, $87.5 million contract given offensive tackle Mike McGinchey almost immediately proved to be exorbitant. Payton is willing to overpay for high-quality glue guys that are cherished as teammates and are rock-steady during difficult times.

And did the Broncos commit a draft-day reach by selecting Bo Nix with the 12th overall pick? Payton doesn’t care, because he now has a quarterback that he can mold in the image of Drew Brees rather than Wilson, who offended his coaching sensibilities in a manner maybe not fully revealed until that infamous sideline confrontation in Detroit.

Payton seems much more relaxed and far less Mr. Crabbypants through the early stages of workouts during his second season as coach in this dusty old cowtown. I suspect it’s in no small measure because a year ago Payton was busy with the malodorous task of coaching players he regarded as trash that needed to be taken to the curb while holding his nose.

Now you hear new defensive lineman John Franklin-Meyers, recently acquired in a trade with the New York Jets, gush about his new boss: “The chance to play for coach Sean Payton? Shoot, I couldn’t pass it up.”

The NFL scoreboard and rules of the game are designed to reward a winner at the expense of a loser. By the same token, Payton repeatedly demonstrates that he views football relationships as either to his benefit or detriment, with little middle ground and mutually beneficial as extraneous words in his world.

As a rookie in 2021 Williams was bad to the bone, punishing tacklers and averaging 4.4 yards on 203 carries. In 2023, during his first season back from ACL surgery, Williams was a shell of his former self, averaging 3.6 yards on 217 carries.

He has read the research that indicates that an ACL injury will test an athlete’s patience, but a competitor that refuses to be discouraged can have his patience rewarded after 18 months of trials and tribulations.

“Hopefully,” Williams said, “it will be the same thing for me.”

Williams is betting on himself. And the stakes are high.

Unless he can regain his old burst and bring the mayhem we saw from Williams prior to that bummer luck of a bad injury, I’m not sure if he can outrun his association with lousy Broncos football that Payton is trying to eradicate from the team’s culture.