The conversation turned to Sean Payton as we turned left on Speer Avenue, sunrise at our backs. Jay Norvell is the Kevin Bacon of American football. If he didn’t play with somebody, he played against him. Or coached against him. Or coached with him. “They’d smuggled us all in there,” the CSU football coach recalled from the front of the minivan, “when it was still dark.” The smuggling in question took place in Philadelphia, first week of October 1987, in the middle of the night, which is when the NFL does the stuff it doesn’t want fans to see, like moving the Colts from Baltimore. Payton, the new Broncos coach, and the Rams’ second-year boss, were teammates once.