Will Sean Payton be coaching an NFL team next season? | You Pod to Win the Game

Yahoo Sports Charles Robinson, Jori Epstein and Charles McDonald discuss the lack of movement on the coaches front in the NFL. More particularly the lack of a new head coaching gig for former Saints head coach Sean Payton. Is he really worth the compensation owed the Saints to hire him? Is he worth the big money and power he is asking for? Hear the full conversation on the You Pod to Win the Game podcast. Subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher or wherever you listen.

Video Transcript

CHARLES ROBINSON: It's been quiet. Obviously, in the coaching front right now. I would have thought by today, Wednesday, we would have had some movement. Particularly, with Sean Payton. Starting to wonder if this gets to the weekend and we're headed toward the Senior Bowl next week and Sean Payton hasn't been locked down, seems like the front runner would be the Denver Broncos at this point, given the fact that he has scheduled a second interview with the Broncos.

It appears to be delayed right now, and he's gone through first interviews with a multitude of other teams. Starting to wonder if it doesn't get done by the Senior Bowl, whether or not we're looking at Sean Payton potentially sitting out until next year in terms of the head coaching opportunities. A lot of things at play here.

Brought up this the fact that ownership clearly is something high on his list of priorities. But there's the trade assets you have to give up. There's the potential to pay him $20 to $25 million a season. And then, there's this aspect of control.

If you're going to pay him $20 to $25 million a season, it only makes sense that you'd be doing the Mike Holmgren Seattle deal from years ago, where you're basically saying, here's the keys to the operation. You make the calls pretty much on everything.

Interesting how that dynamic would work with George Paton the general manager there. Whatever the case, it's clearly seems to be dragging a little bit for Sean Payton in this process. And I don't know, maybe this just isn't the right set of circumstances for him right now, and there is no absolutely perfect landing spot.

Does he-- does he just roll the dice on Denver and go, hey, I want to-- let's see what we can do with Russ, and let's see how the ownership deal works out. And you're going to pay me a ton of money and maybe I'll just be happy with that.

CHARLES MCDONALD: OK, I have a question. As far as Sean Payton's his head coaching search goes, how long do the Saints own his contract for?

JORI EPSTEIN: Through to 2024.

CHARLES ROBINSON: Through the 2024 season, yep.

CHARLES MCDONALD: OK, so he would have to wait two more years.

CHARLES ROBINSON: Yeah, you're basically, so like, the way I put it, and everybody just-- I don't know. A lot of people disagreed with me on Twitter. You're giving up a draft asset for the right to hire him two years early. Like, you could sit there and go, we don't want to give up a draft asset. We'll wait until 2025 and we'll hire him as Coach.

No, we want to hire him now. So basically, you're trading a draft asset for the ability to-- just to hire him.

CHARLES MCDONALD: Yeah, yeah, I was just trying to figure out how long it was because maybe Sean could be looking at this from a perspective of like, all right, if it cost a first round pick to get me, do I really want to go to a team without a first round pick my first year? Maybe I don't know how much that's weighing on him but if I'm Sean Payton, I'm kind of looking at like, if I'm going to be a hot commodity and I'm going to have options, are these five jobs that are open, are these really where I want to be instead of just chilling at home?

Like, is this a situation that I want to jump right back into, especially, if we're looking at the non Arizona teams, we don't have a quarterback. There's ownership struggles all across these situations. I don't know.

I feel like for him, he might be in a rare enough spot where he can sit this one out and get right back into it next year. Maybe with some better options for him and what he's trying to do like immediately when he returns to coaching. That's the only thing that I've been bouncing around in my head.

JORI EPSTEIN: Yeah, I'm almost like the opposite way, where if like if I'm a coach or if I'm a team, and there's other options here, and I think Sean Payton is good but like maybe not worth that pick. Like, it's not like-- I don't know. I just feel like if someone really wanted to sign him, it would have happened. Like, CROB was saying, it would have happened.

The restrictions on looking for coaches are most tied to teams still in the playoffs and he has not had any other restrictions for interviewing since this process started. And people aren't there and they're looking at other options and they're kind of waiting on whether it's DeMeco Ryans, or someone or, I don't know, [INAUDIBLE].

I don't know. I'm starting to wonder the level of interest. And I know we talked about his excitement if the Chargers came open and he could work in Southern California with Justin Herbert. And obviously, that goes to what CMAC is saying in regards to there might be options for him next year.

But I also think it's interesting when you look at the teams still remaining in the playoffs. And three of the four of them, everyone other than Mahomes, who's just an incomparable, are playing with guys on rookie quarterback contracts. And we're starting to see that there is kind of this question of, yeah, these guys are good quarterbacks. And especially, two of them have really shown something.

But how much is the ingredients to a Super Bowl a decent to good rookie quarterback? And a lot of talent around him before you get to that next contract. And then, you go and you're like, well, we're not even going to have that top draft pick because we have to give it up for Sean.

And maybe we already have like a lot of the teams with Kyler, Russell Wilson. Like, some of these teams already have super heavy contracts. Plus, as we've discussed, Denver already gave up picks. I think you start to really have issues with what is a formula that's currently working for these teams and why you would decide that Sean Payton is worth what he's going to cost in several facets.