Englewood, Colorado. — Denver Broncos owner and CEO Greg Penner said at the start of the team’s coaching search that he wanted “a strong leader for this organization,” and sources on Tuesday told ESPN that the Broncos have agreed to a trade with the New Orleans Saints, ultimately making Sean Payton the 19th head coach in franchise history.
Because he had signed an extension with the Saints, in 2019, that was set to run through the 2024 season, the Saints and Broncos had to negotiate compensation for Denver signing Payton as their head coach.
The Saints will get the Broncos’ 2023 first-round pick (29th overall) and their 2024 second-round pick Payton and the Saints’ 2024 third-round pick, sources tell ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
It is also expected to make the Broncos Payton one of the highest paid coaches in the league.
The Broncos traded their first-round pick to the Seattle Seahawks in last year’s blockbuster trade to acquire the Russell Wilson But then I got a first-round pick from the Miami Dolphins in a trade that was sent Bradley Chubb To Miami last season. That selection originally belonged to the San Francisco 49ers, who sent the pick to Miami in a trade that allowed them the pick Tri Lance in the 2021 draft.
The trade returns the Saints to the first round of the 2023 draft. New Orleans traded their 2023 pick to the Philadelphia Eagles in a draft pick trade last year.
Payton, who was the 2006 NFL Coach of the Year, will be Nathaniel Hackett, who was fired Dec. 26, the day after the Broncos’ dismal 51-14 loss to the Los Angeles Rams at SoFi Stadium dropped Denver to 4-11. The season was 5-12 as interim head coach Jerry Rosberg finished the season.
Payton was 152-89 in his fifteen seasons as head coach of the Saints including a win in Super Bowl XLIV over the Indianapolis Colts. Payton has not been a coach this season and has been an analyst for Fox Sports.
Payton will be tasked with fixing the league’s lowest offense in 2022, as Wilson finished with a career-high 16 touchdown passes and was sacked 55 times. The Broncos have missed the playoffs seven straight seasons and have fired three coaches — Vance Joseph, Vic Fangio and Hackett — since January 2019.
Kicker Brandon McManus He is the only player on the current roster to wear a uniform in the Broncos’ final playoff game – their victory in Super Bowl 50 to cap off the 2015 season.
Payton initially interviewed Broncos officials on January 17 and was the fifth of eight candidates initially interviewed in the first wave. Benner had waved his hand before starting to search for why someone in Payton’s experiment might have ended up working.
After Hackett was fired, Benner said, “Obviously X and O are important, but we need a strong leader for this organization that’s focused on winning. This starts with culture. It instills a sense of accountability and discipline. We need an identity over offense. At the starting point, it has to be It is about culture and leadership. These characteristics are what we focus on the most.”
Michigan Harpo coach, former Stanford coach David Shaw, former Atlanta Falcons coach Dan Quinn, former Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Raheem Morris and former Detroit Lions coach Jim Caldwell were all former NFL coaches initially interviewed by the Bronc. Defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans of the San Francisco 49ers, who is preparing to become coach of the Houston Texans, was the last of the eight candidates interviewed.
The Payton’s Saints teams, with Drew Brees at quarterback, were among the league’s best on offense. The Saints won at least 10 games nine times in his tenure and went to the playoffs nine times.
Brees was a 12-time Pro Bowl selection during Payton’s tenure with the Saints. Trees exceeded 4,000 yards passed 12 times and exceeded 5,000 yards passed five times. Breeze led the league in passing, seven times.
Payton was suspended, without pay, for the 2012 season as a penalty after the league investigated the Saints had a bounty program to pay players for hits by opposing players.
The Broncos finished last in the league in scoring that season (16.9 points per game), and last in the league in third-place conversions, scoring 16 points or fewer in 11 games and losing nine games by seven points or fewer.
Hackett’s firing brought an abrupt end to the shortest tenure of any non-interim head coach in franchise history. Benner had decreed after Hackett’s firing that “we’ve got to make this right”.
At one point this season, the Broncos featured their first scoring defense and their 32nd offense. The Broncos’ current playoff playoff drought is the franchise’s longest since the franchise’s early years, when it missed the playoffs between 1960 and 1976.
It’s a far cry from Hall of Famer Pat Bowlen’s three-decade run as owner, when the Broncos went to more Super Bowls (seven) than they lost seasons. This season is also the fifth time the Broncos have averaged fewer than 20 points per game over the past seven years. Until Hackett’s firing, Josh McDaniels had the shortest tenure as the team’s non-interim head coach in the post-AFL/NFL merger era. He was fired in 2010 with four games remaining in his second season on the job. The Broncos were 3-9 when he was ejected.
Hackett, 42, was hired with fanfare last January after serving three seasons as the Green Bay Packers’ offensive coordinator under Matt Lafleur. At the time, Patton described Hackett as “a dynamic leader and coach whose intelligence, innovation and charisma impressed us from the very beginning of the operation”.
Shortly after hiring Hackett, the Broncos traded five draft picks, including two first-round and two second-round picks, as well as three players to the Seattle Seahawks to acquire Wilson. Wilson was signed to a five-year, $245 million contract extension right before the start of the season.
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