Sean Payton coached the Saints from 2006 through 2021 (with the exception of the 2012 bounty situation). Before that, he\u2019d spent every year as an assistant coach, all the way back to 1988.<\/p>\n
In 2022, Payton worked at Fox for a year. During a Thursday press conference, he was asked about being in high-stakes moments, given that he spent a full season away from the game before coming to Denver.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s funny you brought that up\u201d Payton said. \u201cYesterday, I shared it with the players. I said, \u2018That year away is a big transition.\u2019 We\u2019re all sold on what retirement\u2019s going to be, on the lake somewhere with a fishing pole. . . . It\u2019s a little overrated that way relative to having a purpose and getting up. That year out, very little mattered. Getting ready for the Sunday where they\u2019re going to throw you a few easy questions, and you\u2019re going to have a narrative about the game, and then you stay and then go home. <\/p>\n
\u201cBut all the while, immediately you realize that racetrack is going. I\u2019ve said this, you smell the gasoline, the lights are on, and you\u2019re like, \u2018Man, there\u2019s nothing like that.\u2019 There\u2019s going to be a time where, and I said this to the players, \u2018There\u2019s going to be a time where all of us have to get off, but you know what? Not today. Not today.\u2019 There\u2019s nothing like it. There\u2019s nothing like it.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s something former Steeler coach Mike Tomlin will be experiencing in 2026, unless he changes his mind about not coaching next season. Maybe, after considering Payton\u2019s perspective on life without smelling the gasoline, maybe Tomlin will.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sean Payton coached the Saints from 2006 through 2021 (with the exception of the 2012 bounty situation). Before…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-410337","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}