Meet Lou Ayeni, the coach developing the Broncos' new backfield at 'the speed of trust'

New York Times

5 days ago

ENGLEWOOD, Colo. — Lou Ayeni didn't need to look at a clock to know the sunrise was creeping toward him.
As the running backs coach at Iowa State in 2016, Ayeni had an open-door policy, and David Montgomery frequently made the most of it. The team stayed in a hotel on Friday nights before Saturday games.
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Montgomery could often be found in Ayeni's room as those two days blended together, spilling whatever was on his heart during a time he was wrestling doubts about everything, including whether he even wanted to keep playing football.
Ayeni would just listen. Even when it would dawn on him that dawn was creeping closer and the pillow was beckoning, the coach kept listening. It was the one thing Montgomery, experiencing 'culture shock' after moving from Cincinnati to Ames, Iowa, was seeking more than anything else.
'He was like the pops I never had,' said Montgomery, now a star running back with the Detroit Lions. 'Being able to have somebody who was there for me when I needed him the most and somebody who always pushed me to be the best version of myself every day, you couldn't ask (for) anybody better.'
Ayeni, like Montgomery, made it from Ames to the NFL. He is entering his third season as the Broncos running backs coach and is charged with maximizing the talent of a reconfigured backfield that includes coveted second-round pick RJ Harvey and free-agent addition JK Dobbins. Beyond that duo is a group of young backs with three or fewer years of NFL experience who have gravitated toward their position coach's personable style.
'He has a good demeanor about him, the way that he interacts with his players,' offensive coordinator Joe Lombardi said. 'He fits in well with the staff and coaches his guys up real well. He's a great asset for us.'
Broncos offensive line coach Zach Strief, who was one of Sean Payton's first staff hires when he took the Denver job in 2023, played with Ayeni at Northwestern in the early 2000s. When Payton approached Strief about the idea of bringing Ayeni onto the staff, Strief offered something that was more an involuntary reaction than a measured response.
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'Sean came into my offense and said, 'What do you know about Lou Ayeni?'' Strief said during his first season in Denver. 'I'm just like, 'He's the best! He's the best! He's the absolute best! We have to bring him in. Everybody loves Lou!' It was the real hard sell.'
In the end, Payton had to do some selling, too.
Ayeni wasn't sure he was ready to jump to the NFL, if only because it would mean leaving the work with college players he had grown to love. Ayeni had a brief NFL career as a converted defensive back before getting a taste of the league from a coaching perspective when he served as an intern with Lovie Smith and the Chicago Bears in 2009. He got to work with a linebacker group, making sure play-calling wristbands for Brian Urlacher and Lance Briggs were ready for practice. He wrapped up that camp saying, 'I'm going to get back to this league at some point.'
'The funny thing, though, is that once I got to college, I wanted to stay because I loved the relationship part of it,' said Ayeni, who recruited and helped develop future Kansas City Chiefs draft pick Kareem Hunt at Toledo before leaving for Iowa State. 'I loved helping build these guys from the ground up. I didn't know if this (NFL) world would be like that. But Sean's a pretty good recruiter. I learned that quick. He was like, 'Nah, relationships still matter and people still matter. It's a people business.' And he's right. I feel like here, we have as good of people on this team as anywhere, so it's been fun for me.'
Before Ayeni began his career in coaching, he played two seasons in the NFL — one as a safety with the Colts under Tony Dungy and the other as a linebacker for the St. Louis Rams and Mike Martz and position coach Joe Vitt, who is now a senior defensive assistant with the Broncos. Ayeni's experience watching the ways in which each of those longtime coaches forged created a mantra he now shares often with the players in his room: 'Everything moves at the speed of trust.'
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'What it means is when you have a relationship with a person where you can trust what they're saying and they know you're really trying to help them be the best they can be, that's when the progress happens,' he said.
The coach points to Jaleel McLaughlin's rookie season in 2023 as an illustration. As an undrafted player, McLaughlin's carries were slow to come. Despite making some splash plays in early training camp practices, his workload was slow to increase. In Denver's first preseason game that year in Arizona, McLaughlin stood on the sideline for nearly the entire game before he finally heard his name called. But Ayeni had reminded McLaughlin that the timing of his opportunity mattered far less than what he did with it.
'He doesn't play until the last drive, but in that last drive he runs us down the field and we score a touchdown,' Ayeni said. 'It was like, 'The kid's got something.' And then he shows up again the next game. It's one of those things where the opportunity, every time you step on the field, make sure you're doing your job and building that consistency to where we can trust you in any situation.'
Trust in any productive relationship, of course, has to work both ways.
Ayeni earns it with his players by being an open book. Marvin Mims, the wide receiver who spent time working with Ayeni last season as the Broncos added ball-carrying duties to his plate, said there is a 'real family vibe' with how the coach operates.
'There's never a time where I can't reach Coach Lou,' McLaughlin added during the Broncos minicamp in June. 'He also connected me with Dave (Montgomery) and so now I'm texting Dave like, 'How can I get better?' Now, he's giving me pointers as well. That just shows the respect that Coach Lou has, not only here but around the league.'
The relationship of Ayeni's that will most be in the spotlight this season and beyond is the one with Harvey, the rookie running back who the Broncos are counting upon to bring more explosive juice to the position. There have already been plays from Harvey, Ayeni said, that have drawn 'Wow' reactions, but the position coach has been most impressed with the young player's growth behind the scenes.
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'I love his attitude and his intent to get better every day in practice,' Ayeni said. 'He wears me out up here and I love it. He's like my fourth kid now, so we spend a lot of time together. It's interesting because he's been such a productive kid in college and I don't think he's scratched the surface of what he can be as a football player. … You can see there is talent there, but what I love is the growth mindset to be better.'
In early May, before the Broncos took the field for OTA workouts, Ayeni was back in Ames with his wife, Patrice, and their three children. They were there to watch as Montgomery became the first person in his family to earn a college degree. The day came nearly a decade after those long hotel room talks set the foundation of a lasting relationship.
'He saw something in me,' Montgomery said, 'that nobody else saw.'
(Top photo of Lou Ayeni: David Zalubowski / Associated Press)