MOBILE— Sean Payton will take on the Denver Broncos’ Russell Wilson reclamation project, and the New Orleans Saints got a first-round pick back for their Super Bowl winning former head coach. The Broncos and Saints agreed to a trade on Tuesday to make Payton the 19th head coach in Denver Broncos history, a source confirmed to the Daily News. A source said Denver is.
Sean Payton will take on the Denver Broncos’ Russell Wilson reclamation project, and the New Orleans Saints got a first-round pick back for their Super Bowl winning former head coach.
The Broncos and Saints agreed to a trade on Tuesday to make Payton the 19th head coach in Denver Broncos history, a source confirmed to the Daily News.
Payton was still under contract with the Saints after stepping away prior to the 2022 NFL season, so a trade was required for Denver to hire him.
A source said Denver is trading a 2023 first-round pick (No. 29 overall) and next year’s second-round pick to the Saints in exchange for Payton and New Orleans’ 2024 third rounder, as ESPN first reported.
All that’s left, a source said, is finalizing the terms of Payton’s contract. The deal is expected to make Payton one of the highest-paid coaches in the NFL, ESPN said.
The Broncos’ head coaching search appeared to be floundering recently given the impact of Wilson’s expensive acquisition and poor performance on the team’s prospects and assets.
And Payton appeared ready to wait another year to jump back into the NFL after making the rounds on interviews for most of this year’s head coaching vacancies.
But the Broncos, led by owner and CEO Greg Penner and GM George Paton, and the Saints, led by GM Mickey Loomis, persisted to get this trade done.
