ENGLEWOOD, Colorado — Greg Penner, owner and CEO of the Denver Broncos, said at the start of the team’s coaching search that he wanted a “strong leader for this organization,” a source on Tuesday said the Broncos would be working with New Orleans. told ESPN that they had agreed to a trade. The Saints named Sean Payton as the 19th head coach in franchise history.
He had signed an extended contract with the Saints in 2019 that would run until the 2024 season, so the Saints and the Broncos had to negotiate compensation for Denver to sign Payton as head coach.
The Saints will receive the Broncos’ 2023 first-round pick (29th overall), Payton’s second-round pick in 2024, and the Saints’ 2024 third-round pick, sources told ESPN. told Adam Shefter.
The Broncos are also expected to make Payton one of the highest paid head coaches in the league.
The Broncos traded a first-round pick to the Seattle Seahawks in last year’s blockbuster trade. Russell Wilson However, he was later traded to the Miami Dolphins for a first-round pick. Bradley Chubb Miami last season. The pick was originally owned by the San Francisco 49ers. Trey Lance in the 2021 draft.
The trade will return the Saints to the first round of the 2023 Draft. New Orleans traded the 2023 pick to the Philadelphia Eagles in last year’s draft pick trade.
Payton, the 2006 NFL Coach of the Year, was announced on Dec. 26, the day after the Broncos lost 51-14 to the Los Angeles Rams at Sofi Stadium in a 4-4 loss to Denver. Resigns fired Nathaniel Hackett. 11. They finished the season 5-12 as interim coach Jerry Rosberg closed out the year.
Payton went 152-89 in 15 seasons as the Saints’ head coach, including a win in Super Bowl XLIV against the Indianapolis Colts. Payton has not coached this season and Fox has been an analyst for the sport.
With Wilson finishing with a career-low 16 touchdown passes and receiving a career-high 55 sacks, Payton will be tasked with fixing the league’s lowest-scoring offense in 2022. The Broncos have missed the playoffs for the seventh straight season and have fired three head coaches since January 2019: Vance Joseph, Vic Fangio and Hackett.
kicker Brandon McManus He is the only player on the current roster to wear the uniform in the Broncos’ final playoff game, the Super Bowl 50 win that caps off the 2015 season.
Peyton first interviewed with Broncos officials on January 17, and was the fifth of eight candidates originally interviewed in the first wave. could get the job before the search began.
“X and O are important, of course, but this organization needs a strong leader focused on winning,” Penner said after Hackett was fired. “It starts with culture. It instills a sense of accountability and discipline. Attacks need identity. As a starting point, it must be about culture and leadership. It’s what we value the most.”
Michigan coach Jim Harbaugh, former Stanford head coach David Shaw, former Atlanta Falcons coach Dan Quinn, former Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Raheem Morris, former Detroit Lions coach Jim Harbaugh. Caldwell was the former NFL head coach the Broncos first interviewed. Demeko Lyons, the defensive coordinator for the San Francisco 49ers poised to coach the Houston Texans, was the last of eight candidates interviewed.
With quarterback Drew Brees, the Peytons Saints team consistently had the best offense in the league. The Saints won at least nine of the ten games he played during his tenure and made the playoffs nine times.
Brees was selected to the Pro Bowl 12 times during Payton’s tenure with the Saints. Brees passed 12 passes for over 4,000 yards and five passes for over 5,000 yards. Brees led the league with 7 passes.
Payton was suspended without pay for the 2012 season as punishment after a league investigation in which the Saints had a prize program that paid players for hits on opposing players.
The Broncos are last in the league in scoring this season (16.9 points per game) and last in third-down conversions, losing 11 games by 16 or less and nine games lost by 7 or less.
Hackett’s dismissal abruptly ended the shortest non-interim head coaching term in franchise history. After Hackett was fired, Penner declared, “We have to get this right.”
At one point this season, the Broncos featured the 1st scoring defense and 32nd scoring offense. The Broncos’ current playoff drought is also the franchise’s longest since the early days of the franchise missing the playoffs between 1960 and 1976.
It’s a far cry from Hall of Famer Pat Bowlen’s 30-year run as owner when the Broncos went to more Super Bowls (seven) than they lost a season. It was also the fifth time he averaged less than 20 points per game in . Prior to Hackett’s dismissal, Josh McDaniels had the shortest tenure as a non-interim head coach for a team after the AFL/NFL merger. He was fired in 2010, with four games remaining in his second season of work. The Broncos were on his 3-9 record when he was sacked.
Hackett, 42, was hired in a big way last January after three seasons as the Green Bay Packers’ offensive coordinator under Matt Raffler. At the time, Patton called Hackett “a dynamic leader and coach whose intelligence, innovation and charisma impressed us from the beginning of the process.”
Shortly after Hackett’s hire, the Broncos traded five draft picks, including two first- and two second-round picks, and three to the Seattle Seahawks for Wilson. Wilson signed a five-year, $245 million extension just before the start of the season.
