Broncos swing big, hit a home run by hiring, trading for Sean Payton

A little over a year after hiring Nathaniel Hackett to be the team’s head coach, the Denver Broncos have made a substantial change. The Broncos, of course, fired Hackett after the team’s embarrassing Christmas Day loss in Los Angeles against the Rams. Just over a month later, the team has hired head coach Sean Payton, a deal that was perhaps more complicated than meets the eye.

Not only did the Denver Broncos have to go through the Saints just to even talk to Payton — who was still under contract with New Orleans despite being “retired” in 2022 — but they had to draw the interest of Payton, who only talked with four of the five teams that had head coach openings throughout this year’s process.

Payton has been pretty transparent about the process from his side of things from the start, and one of the things he’s been emphasizing is strong ownership as a priority for him. It doesn’t get much stronger than a group of people that just paid an American pro sports record $4.65 billion to acquire the Broncos last year, does it?

Sean Payton joins the Denver Broncos, but can he fix Russ?

So, the Broncos jumped through the hoops to get the first in-person interview with Sean Payton, who was perceived as perhaps the top overall target for any team in this head coaching cycle. When he completed his first round of interviews with the Broncos, Texans, Cardinals, and Panthers (not necessarily in that order) there were no second interviews scheduled.

People took that to mean one of two things: Either Payton wasn’t impressed with the opportunities before him and would return to TV for 2023, or teams weren’t impressed with Payton and were being forced to pivot their plans.

As it turns out, the Denver Broncos made good on what was reported early on — they took a big swing.

The Broncos sent the Saints their first-round pick in the 2023 NFL Draft (29th overall) along with a second-round pick in 2024 in exchange for Payton and a 2024 third-round pick. For those wondering how the Broncos had a first-round pick to trade after last year’s Russell Wilson blockbuster, the team traded Bradley Chubb to the Miami Dolphins at this year’s deadline.

So, effectively, the Broncos traded Chubb for Sean Payton. That’s a trade you’ve got to make 10 times out of 10.

Payton is one of the top offensive minds in the NFL, and has been for a very long time. He will now be coaching Russell Wilson, who is coming off of the worst year of his NFL career. The Broncos had virtually no running game to speak of in 2022, thanks in part to a season-ending injury for Javonte Williams, but that clearly affected Russ in a big way.

Not only that, but Wilson was dealing with injury issues of his own throughout the season — a torn lat, a quad injury, and a concussion. Despite the injuries, Wilson played bad when Nathaniel Hackett was the team’s head coach. He seemed to turn things up and start “cooking” down the stretch of the season, starting with the Broncos’ matchup at home against Kansas City in which he suffered the concussion.

Payton will be tasked, at least initially, with reviving Russ. For almost the entirety of his career, the worst we had seen from Wilson was a top-15 or top-20 QB, depending on how critical you want to be. He’s always been a difference-maker, but in year one with the Broncos, he looked like a shell of his former self.

Can Payton help turn him around? The Broncos are banking on it, big time. But if Russ is clearly the issue in Denver, the team can move on from him (albeit with some dead money) in 2024 and Payton can build things the way he wants to. In the meantime, you should absolutely expect Payton to bring in some substantial competition at the backup QB position. Not necessarily to contend with Russ, but to push him.

Payton is also rumored to be building a mega-staff which could include Vic Fangio. Will the fact that he’s landed in Denver be a deal-breaker for Fangio? Hold the phone on that one. Fangio had reportedly agreed to become the defensive coordinator of the Miami Dolphins over the weekend, but that deal is either dead or on hold for the time being.