On Tuesday, the Denver Broncos traded their 2023 first-round pick, and a 2024 second-round pick to the New Orleans Saints for the right to sign former Saints head coach Sean Payton to play that same role in Denver, as well as a future third-round pick. The Broncos had to make this deal because Payton, who retired after the 2021 season, had two years left on his contract.
It’s a lot to give up for any coach, especially after all the picks and players Denver gave to the Seattle Seahawks for quarterback Russell Wilson, but in the end, these two trades are absolutely and completely related.
The Broncos need a Russell Wilson fixer, and if they don’t get one, their franchise is is big trouble for a lot of years. Former head coach and offensive shot-caller Nathaniel Hackett never had the expertise or the gravitas to handle a quarterback of Wilson’s history and caliber, and that certainly showed in a 2022 season that was by far Wilson’s worst. As much as Wilson prefers to play out of structure at times, he needs to be coached hard by someone who understands the position, and has the skins on the wall, tohave Wilson take him seriously.
Payton turned Drew Brees, one of Wilson’s idols, into a Hall of Fame quarterback after Brees’ up-and-down time with the San Diego Chargers, so he’s hardly a neophyte.
Still, taking the quarterback Wilson was last season and turning him back into the Russell Wilson we’ve seen before — perhaps without some of the longtime flaws that caught Wilson short even at his best — will be a tough task.
Fortunately for those of us who are supposed to try and analyze these things and anticipate how they may go, Payton has already laid out, in fairly explicit detail, how he’d turn Wilson back into the quarterback the Broncos expected to have when they gave up a king’s ransom for him.