Is Payton worth 1st-round pick? Denver is banking on it.
Could Sean Payton be the next big thing in the NFL?
Not in the traditional manner, mind you. He’s already established himself as one of the game’s most successful coaches by winning 152 regular- season games, nine playoff games and a Super Bowl over 15 years as New Orleans’ head coach.
Instead, what if doing what Denver did to acquire Payton — trading the Saints a first-round pick and swapping future draft assets — became more common in the future?
Certainly, trading for a head coach is not the norm currently in football. In fact, Payton was just the seventh head coach traded in the past 50 years and the third involving a first-round pick.
Former Atlanta Falcons general manager Thomas Dimitroff, now with the analytics firm Sumer Sports, said on a podcast recently he thinks he’d give the thought more consideration in the future if he ever returned to a front office.
“Categorically yes. Hell yes I would,” he said. “… Only on the opposite end of all this, meaning after I got fired, did I really start considering the opportunity to look into something like this. It’s a big-time move.
“It takes a lot to consider something like that.”
So, let’s consider it.
Sumer Sports’ Eric Eager pegs the average surplus value of the No. 1 overall pick at about $66 million over a four-year rookie contract and the No. 29 pick, which Denver traded to New Orleans for Payton, at $55 million.
Valuing coaching is a realm front offices and analytics people are continuing to develop, but one area where data allows for grading is in decision-making — fourth downs, timeout usage, etc.
“So (Philadelphia head coach) Nick Sirianni has added .8 wins to his team this year just on decision-making,” Eager said. “That number is pretty stable year to year, but you might assume this year is a little bit of an outlier year. Maybe he’s worth .6 wins above the average head coach. Then all the other stuff, game prep, you’re picking up nickels on the ground rather than dollar
bills, but let’s say it’s worth about the same as decisionmaking.
“So maybe the best coach in the NFL, you can handicap them as worth about 1.25 wins (above average) over a season.”
Extrapolate that out over a four-year rookie contract, and the best head coach in the game is worth five wins over the average head coach. Analysts calculate the average cost per win to about $25 million, which would mean an elite head coach delivers $125 million in value over four years.
A coach also costs money — in Payton’s case, likely top- of-the-market money or close to it. But the difference is that none of those dollars the Walton-penner Family Ownership Group pays him count against the salary cap.
“That’s where it gets tricky: Does that money matter to the Waltons? Probably not,” Eager said. “As far as team- building (with the salary cap) it doesn’t matter at all. So then $125 million is worth the No. 1 overall pick twice if you don’t care about what the coach costs.”
There are plenty of layers. Payton may not be the best coach in the NFL — “he’s not prime Bill Belichick,” Eager said — and NFL owners do care what coaches cost even if they can afford it.
Payton’s value has to be measured against something. Time will tell if his decision-making outstrips that of, say, San Francisco defensive coordinator DEMeco Ryans, another top candidate for the Broncos job who cost Houston no draft capital at all to hire. So the alternative, and the extent to which franchises have alternatives, must be taken into account.
Another: Nothing happens in a vacuum. Analytics say Payton is likely well worth a first-round pick — “I think it’s very clear he is, actually,” Eager said — but Denver also traded two firstrounders and two secondrounders along with three players less than a year ago for Russell Wilson. So acquiring Payton draws down an already suppressed amount of draft capital for the Broncos in 2023. That matters for team- building efforts, even if the impact beyond April’s draft (a swapped second-rounder for a third-rounder in 2024) is minimal.
Acquiring a coach with a track record of success, though, becomes an interesting value proposition because coaching performance might be more repeatable than player performance. First- round draft picks often provide substantial value, but are far from a sure thing. Even acquiring a veteran player with a long track record like Wilson comes with risk, as Denver has experienced.
“The problem with that is A) it’s not as sure of a thing as you think, but also B) even if it was, you’re paying significant cap dollars in addition to the draft capital to acquire that player,” Eager said. “So in the case of a coach, you’re not paying any cap dollars to acquire him. You’re paying ownership’s money, which is funny money at that point.”
Denver is hoping Payton’s arrival brings other benefits. If he helps generate a Wilson resurgence, then the bang-for-the-buck improves. CEO Greg Penner and general manager George Paton talked at length in December about the need for improvement in harder-tomeasure areas like team culture and identity.
Former Saints quarterback Luke Mccown told The Post he thinks Payton is worth four-plus wins for what he does in those areas. “He possesses all of those qualities — not just the game plan, but the adjustments we need to make within the game plan, during the game and the understanding of the people on my team. ‘How do I push the right buttons and maximize abilities and build a team — putting the right blocks in the right places?’”
None of this means, necessarily, that the Broncos might not have been better off with somebody else or that every team is suddenly going to run out and trade for coaches. Situation matters. Payton was under contract through 2024 with New Orleans but not actively coaching. It might, however, be something more teams consider in the future as data and analytics continue evolving.
“Someone should make San Francisco turn down two first-round picks for Kyle Shanahan,” Eager said. “Go to them and say, ‘I’ll give you two No. 1s for him’ and make them turn it down. I think that’s the way we find out if this will ever be adopted, is to try it.”
If that sounds preposterous — if San Francisco would decline in a heartbeat — it only reinforces why Denver saw value in paying a late first-round pick and change for Payton.