A hot commodity on the head coaching market, @SeanPayton discusses if there’s a team he’s leaning towards and what he’s looking for in a job. pic.twitter.com/3wEhJ78Pws
— FOX Sports: NFL (@NFLonFOX) January 8, 2023
Where is Sean Payton going to be in 2023? Will he be coaching Russell Wilson and the Denver Broncos? What about Kyler Murray and the Arizona Cardinals? Dak Prescott and the Dallas Cowboys? Or maybe Justin Herbert and the Los Angeles Chargers. One thing is for sure: the former New Orleans Saints head coach is going to be in high demand during this year’s hiring cycle.
But Payton says he’s already in a great spot with the FOX Sports broadcasting team. Payton talked up his surrounding cast in the studio, making it clear that he’ll need a special situation to make him leave a good job in TV. When pressed, though, he laid out what he’s looking for as offers begin to surface:
“Everyone’s asking about that city, or quarterback. I think it’s more about ownership and front office. There’s no utopia — all these teams, they’re all moving on for reasons. And some of them, you’ve got to be careful that it’s not just the coach, that there are problems that run deeper. For me, it would be ownership and front office,” Payton finished.
So he’s looking for support and stability from the top of the organization, which makes sense. And that’s startlingly hard to come by in the NFL with a lot of unserious teams playing politics and pinching pennies when they ought to be worried about winning football games, spending too much time worrying about job titles and who gets the most credit or cutting costs to talk about their profits.
When asked about his odds of returning to the FOX studio in 2023 on a scale of one to ten, Payton responded “Seven,” with a straight face. So he’s more likely to stay in the studio than return to a sideline. That might be hard to believe, and it’s probably a leverage play to help him (and maybe the Saints) out in negotiations, but it goes to show that he has enjoyed a turn in the media as much as he expected. Let’s see what’s next for him.