The Arizona Cardinals were one of several teams interested in acquiring Super Bowl-winning head coach Sean Payton from the New Orleans Saints earlier this offseason.
In fact, Arizona seemingly had agreed to the compensation it would’ve taken to pry Payton from the Saints before the team met with him.
In the end, Payton landed with the Denver Broncos in exchange for a first-round pick (29th overall) in the 2023 NFL Draft. He also earned the largest contract in NFL history for a head coach.
According to Cardinals owner Michael Bidwell, it wasn’t Payton’s contract demands that forced them to go in another direction. Rather, it was all about what it would’ve taken in terms of draft pick compensation to land the highly respected head coach.
“We spent a lot of time. The issues around coach Payton had nothing to do with the money, the compensation we would be paying him. It was all the compensation, the draft compensation to the Saints. We just weren’t willing to go with what the Saints wanted us to give up. It would have been too costly to the team for us to rebuild that roster.”
Bidwell on Sean Payton situation
In the end, Arizona opted to hire former Philadelphia Eagles defensive coordinator Jonathan Gannon as its next head coach weeks after Payton landed in Denver.
There’s certainly some context that must be added here. If the Saints were dead set on landing a first-round pick for Payton, there was absolutely no reason for the Arizona Cardinals to have paid that out. They boast the third selection in the upcoming 2023 NFL Draft. In terms of value, the gap between this selection and the 29th pick Denver sent to New Orleans is pretty extensive.
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Though, there’s a darn good chance that the Saints would have kept negotiations open if the Arizona Cardinals had offered the equivalent of that 29th selection. Something akin to the Cardinals’ second-round pick (35th overall) and third rounder (67th overall) might have been attractive to New Orleans.
Alas, Sean Payton is now leading Russell Wilson and Co. in Denver while Arizona turns to Gannon in hopes of bringing Philadelphia’s winning culture to the desert.