Sean Payton is still making the media rounds while hunting offers for his own job in TV covering the NFL, and the former New Orleans Saints head coach making his latest appearance on the Green Light podcast with Chris Long, the retired NFL defensive end who spent 11 years in the pros and won a pair of Super Bowl rings with the New England Patriots (in 2016) and Philadelphia Eagles (in 2017).
It’s a really good — and wide-ranging, hour-long — listen with Payton candidly talking about the importance of getting his players their performance bonuses (like Emmanuel Sanders cashing in a bonus for receptions in 2020), recruiting Tony Romo out of their shared alma mater at Eastern Illinois, also reflecting on his long NFL coaching career, discussing his experience as an assistant on Bill Parcells’ staff and his long, successful run leading the Saints in New Orleans.
But Payton hasn’t always gotten the players he’s wanted most. His Saints tenure was full of swings and misses, coming up short in pursuit of players like Romo (again), Marshawn Lynch, Malcolm Butler, Josh Norman, Ndamukong Suh, and Jadeveon Clowney. It’s a frustrating trend that Payton says started way back in 2000, when he was the New York Giants’ offensive coordinator — who tried and failed to get Tom Brady in his quarterbacks room.
“All right, so I’m in New York and my agent is Don Yee, and Don also represents Tom Brady,” Payton began. “Don would periodically call me with a client that he just signed, and he said, ‘Hey will you call up Tom Brady? He’s at Michigan and I’ve got him, and just help him out with things that would be important for him at the combine.'”
Payton followed up on that request, meeting Brady through their shared agent, and the rest is history. He studied Brady’s game tape and graded him as a late third round, early fourth round player — which he shared with longtime Giants scout Raymond “Whitey” Walsh, who didn’t have enough pull in New York’s war room at the time to convince team decision-makers into drafting Brady. The way Payton tells it, he knew their cause was sunk once he realized he and Whitey were standing on the table alone.
Of course Brady turned out to be a better pro than anyone could have imagined, but it’s still a great anecdote (even if it’s become a trope over the years for retirees like Bill Polian to claim the same since Brady conquered the NFL). Let’s hope Payton’s personnel decisions don’t pan out much better whenever he makes his return to the NFL; we need his next team to send picks back to New Orleans early and often, right? In the meantime, we’re eager to see where Payton lands as he continues to seek out his first media gig, and more strong appearances like this podcast spot will help pad out his resume.
