Well there’s your Denver Broncos sales pitch, Sean Payton. The former New Orleans Saints head coach stepped down from his position to go on hiatus and pal around with his close friend Jay Glazer on the FOX NFL Sunday pregame show each week — and Glazer, the network’s top NFL insider, made it clear just how strongly the Broncos covet the Super Bowl-winning head coach.
“They don’t to go the coordinator route, they want someone with experience who is established. Certainly a guy like Sean Payton, they’d back up the Brinks truck,” Glazer said during his Sunday segment, looking quickly around the studio: “Where’s Sean? He’s around here somewhere. You hear that Sean? They’ll back up the Brinks truck for him.”
Glazer added that, yes, the Broncos (and any other team) looking to hire Payton needs to trade draft pick compensation to the Saints, who own his coaching rights through 2024. And Denver can match almost any other offer. They sent star pass rusher Bradley Chubb to the Miami Dolphins at the midseason trade deadline in exchange for a 2023 first round pick from the San Francisco 49ers (who sent it to Miami in the first place while moving up for quarterback Trey Lance a few years ago). The Broncos also own all of their picks in the 2024 draft’s first four rounds. They can compete with any offer.
And the Broncos’ new ownership group is one of the wealthiest in the NFL, headlined by Walmart heir Rob Walton. Money isn’t an issue, as Glazer made very clear. There’s still another week or two before the NFL’s head coach hiring cycle kicks off in earnest, at which point we’ll learn whether all of this interest reported out of Denver is genuine or just bluster. At any rate, all of the reporting right now suggests they want to swing big.
“The reason why,” Glazer finished, “They do want someone who can come in and work with Russell Wilson.” Glazer identified other top options for the Broncos as Michigan Wolverines head coach Jim Harbaugh, who had great NFL success before leaving to rebuild his alma mater, as well as former Seattle Seahawks defensive coordinator Dan Quinn, who Wilson has worked with in the past. At the end of the day, Payton has to want the job, but these early indications suggest the Broncos owners are prepared to do what’s needed to woo him over.
