Around the NFL

January 26, 2022

Payton steps aside

Saints lose one of NFL's best offensive minds

Sean Payton is stepping aside, and that’s a seismic shift for fantasy purposes. He could always be counted on to put together one of the league’s best offenses. He’s long been one of the top few coaches in the game.

Bill Belichick, Andy Reid, Kyle Shanahan, Sean McVay. Payton was one of those kind of coaches. In general, when you build your fantasy rosters around coaches of this ilk, good things tend to happen.

Payton was the head coach of the Saints for 15 seasons, and nine of those teams finished in the top 5 in scoring. Only one of his teams ranked lower than 12th in scoring, and it came in the just-completed season, with Payton juggling a menagerie of lesser quarterbacks – Jameis Winston, Taysom Hill, Trevor Siemian and even Ian Book.

Payton took over in New Orleans in 2006, with one Super Bowl title, three NFC Championship game appearances and four teams that won 13 regular-season games. He was suspended for the 2012 season as part of the Bounty Gate scandal.

SEAN PAYTON OVERVIEW
Year	Team	W	L	T	Pct	Pts	Rk
2006	Saints	10	6	0	.625	25.8	5
2007	Saints	7	9	0	.438	23.7	12
2008	Saints	8	8	0	.500	28.9	1
2009	Saints	13	3	0	.813	31.9	1
2010	Saints	11	5	0	.688	24.0	11
2011	Saints	13	3	0	.813	34.2	2
2013	Saints	11	5	0	.688	25.9	10
2014	Saints	7	9	0	.438	25.1	9
2015	Saints	7	9	0	.438	25.5	8
2016	Saints	7	9	0	.438	29.3	2
2017	Saints	11	5	0	.688	28.0	4
2018	Saints	13	3	0	.813	31.5	3
2019	Saints	13	3	0	.813	28.6	4
2020	Saints	12	4	0	.750	30.1	5
2021	Saints	9	8	0	.529	21.4	19

Payton did his best work with the passing game. In his 15 seasons, the Saints averaged 289 passing yards per game and 33 TD passes per season. Using standard fantasy scoring, nine of his 15 teams finished either 1st, 2nd or 3rd in passing production.

SEAN PAYTON: PASSING PRODUCTION
Year	Team	Pct	Yds/G	TD	Int	F Pts	Rk
2006	Saints	64.1%	289	27	13	24.6	3
2007	Saints	67.5%	276	28	18	24.3	6
2008	Saints	64.9%	317	34	18	28.6	1
2009	Saints	69.5%	281	34	12	26.8	2
2010	Saints	68.1%	290	33	22	26.9	2
2011	Saints	71.3%	344	46	14	34.5	2
2013	Saints	68.5%	323	39	12	30.8	2
2014	Saints	69.2%	298	33	17	27.3	5
2015	Saints	69.0%	325	32	12	28.3	2
2016	Saints	70.0%	329	38	15	30.7	1
2017	Saints	72.0%	271	23	8	22.2	11
2018	Saints	73.4%	261	33	7	25.4	8
2019	Saints	71.9%	277	36	6	27.3	2
2020	Saints	70.9%	247	28	8	22.8	17
2021	Saints	58.1%	202	29	13	20.3	15

The rushing numbers aren’t as eye-popping, but they’re still good. Two thirds of his teams finished with above-average rushing numbers (again, using standard scoring), and nine of his offenses put up top-10 rushing numbers. On his watch, they averaged 113 rushing yards per game and 17 rushing touchdowns per season. Keep in mind that in most of those games, the Saints didn’t get much rushing production out of the quarterback position (with Drew Brees tending to operate from the pocket).

SEAN PAYTON: RUSHING PRODUCTION
Year	Team	Yd/Att	Yd/G	TDR	F Pts	Rk
2006	Saints	3.7	110	19	12.6	6
2007	Saints	3.7	92	14	9.8	18
2008	Saints	4.0	100	20	12.5	10
2009	Saints	4.5	132	21	14.5	6
2010	Saints	4.0	95	9	8.1	28
2011	Saints	4.9	133	16	12.6	5
2013	Saints	3.8	92	10	8.4	23
2014	Saints	4.5	114	16	11.7	8
2015	Saints	3.8	93	16	10.7	13
2016	Saints	4.3	109	17	11.8	10
2017	Saints	4.7	129	23	15.1	1
2018	Saints	4.3	127	26	16.1	1
2019	Saints	4.3	109	12	9.9	20
2020	Saints	4.6	142	30	18.3	2
2021	Saints	3.9	117	12	10.1	21

I don’t think Payton is done. He’s only 58, making this seem like more of a step back to take a breather. I think he more likely just didn’t like the uphill situation he would have been in with the Saints, with no quarterback and extensive salary cap issues. That’s not a team that’s situated to contend for a Super Bowl in the near future.

I expect Payton will be back in 2023, and he’ll be landing in a far more favorable situation (with the Cowboys looking like the clear frontrunners). Wherever Payton lands, it shouldn’t be long before that team is putting up top-level offensive numbers.

—Ian Allan

Sean Payton Drew Brees

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