Sean Payton’s Return to New Orleans Is Big, Even If the Game Isn’t
By Kyle Wood,
6 hours ago
Over 1,000 days have passed since Sean Payton coached at Caesars Superdome in the heart of New Orleans, the city he led to its one and only Super Bowl.
That stretch will end on Thursday night when Payton returns to the Big Easy on the visitors' sideline for the first time in his 17-year NFL coaching career. Payton, the winningest coach in Saints history, said this week he doesn’t expect “flowers and warm fuzzies” upon his return to New Orleans as the head coach of the Denver Broncos.
Hyped up this summer as one of the best revenge games of the season , Broncos-Saints has lost a bit of its luster as both teams have faltered of late. Denver (3–3) lost last week to the Los Angeles Chargers to end a three-game winning streak. And after starting the season with back-to-back blowout victories, New Orleans (2–4) has dropped four in a row, most recently a lopsided loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. The 37.5-point over/under is the lowest of any Week 7 game.
Denver Broncos head coach Sean Payton won 161 games as head coach of the New Orleans Saints, including Super Bowl XLIV.
Marc Lebryk&solImagn Images
The Broncos have been busy since Payton resigned from his post with the Saints after the 2021 season. Denver hired and fired Nathaniel Hackett, traded for and released Russell Wilson, pulled off a rare coach trade to bring Payton to the Mile High City and drafted rookie quarterback Bo Nix in the first round this year. For its part, New Orleans signed quarterback Derek Carr, who missed last week’s game with an oblique injury. Fifth-round rookie Spencer Rattler started in his place and will do so again this week.
The Saints haven’t made the playoffs since 2020, Payton’s second-to-last year with the team. The Broncos’ last postseason trip was in 2015, Peyton Manning’s last year in the league. Denver is on the playoff bubble in the AFC, but in the crowded NFC postseason picture, New Orleans is falling fast.
Struggling teams aside, it’s also interesting to look at in the historical context of Super Bowl-winning coaches taking on their former teams.
Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Doug Pederson was the last coach in Payton’s position. Pederson, who won Super Bowl LII with the Philadelphia Eagles, returned to the City of Brotherly Love in 2022 as the Jaguars’ coach and had his homecoming spoiled by a 29-21 Jacksonville loss.
Dallas Cowboys head coach Mike McCarthy won Super Bowl XLV with the Green Bay Packers. Both times he's gone against the Packers have been in the playoffs and Dallas dropped both games in 2022 in Green Bay (31-28 in overtime) and again a season ago at home (48-32).
Jon Gruden won Super Bowl XXXVII with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers against the Oakland Raiders, where he began his head coaching career before he was traded to the Bucs. Years later, when Gruden was back coaching the now-Las Vegas Raiders in 2020, they lost to Tampa Bay, 45-20, at home.
The recent history of Super Bowl-winning head coaches going against their former teams doesn’t bode well for Payton. But go back a bit further and Dick Vermeil, who led the St. Louis Rams to victory in Super Bowl XXXIV, beat the Rams 49-10 in 2002 as the Kansas City Chiefs head coach.
Mike Holmgren led the Green Bay Packers to their third Lombardi Trophy in Super Bowl XXXI. He resigned in 1999 to take over as the Seattle Seahawks coach and naturally saw a lot of his former team. Holmgren’s Seahawks beat the Packers 27-7 in his first season in the Pacific Northwest, but Seattle lost twice to Green Bay in the playoffs in his decade-long stint in charge.
Jimmy Johnson also went up against the Cowboys as the coach of the Miami Dolphins a few years after leading Dallas to back-to-back Super Bowls in 1992 and 1993. Johnson’s Dolphins lost to the Cowboys 29-10 in 1996 and 20-0 in 1999, Johnson’s final year as a head coach.
Even the legendary Bill Parcells, who coached the New York Giants to their first two Super Bowl wins in Super Bowls XXI and XXV, went against the G-Men in his next stop with the New England Patriots. Parcells' Patriots prevailed on the road in 1996, 23-22.
Payton will join that list of coaches when he leads the Broncos onto the field Thursday night in New Orleans, likely to a scattered mix of cheers and boos.
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