Can Sean Payton fix the Broncos? | You Pod to Win the Game

Yahoo Sports’ Charles Robinson and Frank Schwab discuss the Broncos trading for Sean Payton, including what this means for one of the worst offenses in the NFL.

Video Transcript

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CHARLES ROBINSON: I wondered why, like the two big questions that are going come out of this are depending on if Sean does great and he puts it all together, awesome and they move forward and we don't talk about all this. But if he struggles, I wonder if we're going to get into the conversation about like they go through the process with him and then it sure did seem like they were trying really hard to hire DeMeco Ryans. Seem like they were making an effort with Jim Harbaugh like not but.

So I talked to somebody with the Saints on Monday. And I was like what? I'm like what exactly happened here? What's the deal? And without getting into too many details, like especially early on, the Saints were clearly looking for a couple of first round picks. And I think that the fact that Denver picked that they had to offer this year to the end of the first round it's like 29th, right? It was like--

FRANK SCHWAB: [INAUDIBLE] at least, yeah.

CHARLES ROBINSON: Yeah. And it's like look, we're let's talk about that pick. That pick is not commensurate to what a first round pick is going to be on the Saints board. The Saints are going to have like 14 first round grades on average. That's like at best somewhere in the second. And they really wanted value of two firsts for Sean Payton. I wonder how much that had to do with what happened. I wonder-- he's denied there was any kind of an issue in the interview about control and if there could be issues between Sean Payton and ownership.

I'll just say this, for an acquisition it was weird, not the cleanest. The timeline was a little odd. And what I ended up writing about this was like I hate to break it to Broncos fans, if you're looking at this as it's going to come in and turn the key and everything's going to be great again that's not what he's being hired to do. He's being hired to not come in and adapt to what is already there, he's being paid to come in and, Sean, make us into a winning culture, a winning franchise.

This is not like hey, Sean, come in and do things the Broncos way. It's quite the opposite. Sean, come in and tell us how things need to be done so that we can get Russ fixed and offense fixed and everything fixed and move forward.

FRANK SCHWAB: And I agree with that completely. I think you're right. I mean, but that's not a bad thing. I mean, the Broncos haven't been in the playoffs in seven years. They're a bad franchise right now. Nobody here wants to admit it. I'm based in Colorado. Nobody here wants to be like, yeah, we're among the dregs.

We're a team where DeMeco Ryan said Broncos or Texans, Texans are the most dysfunctional team in the NFL. I'm going to go to the Houston Texans. I get it. There's history there. But still, at the end of the day, DeMeco Ryan said I'd rather coach the Houston Texans than the Denver Broncos.

There's a lot of work to be done. Changing everything there. But I thought I was great hire. There's this weird like a few people out here. Sean Payton is not that good. Drew Brees, whatever. That's lazy. Sean Payton helped Drew Brees. Drew Brees helped Sean Payton, there's no doubt about that. But this dude is 63 games over 500. Has a Super Bowl ring.

CHARLES ROBINSON: Yep.

FRANK SCHWAB: Who do you think you were going to get that was better? Really? Like even Harbaugh. Harbaugh ain't coached in the NFL 10 years. That had-- to me, Harbaugh has Gruden 2.0 vibes. I don't know. Maybe he'll be a great.

CHARLES ROBINSON: He didn't win a Super Bowl. He didn't win a Super Bowl ever.

FRANK SCHWAB: Correct. Correct. Correct. And if he comes back ever, and I think we're going to do this dance every year with Jim Harbaugh, he might be great. But I don't know that it's a slam dunk. I do love DeMeco Ryans, but there's no track record there. We don't know who DeMeco Ryans going to be.

CHARLES ROBINSON: Sure.

FRANK SCHWAB: I know what Sean Payton is. Sean Payton is a very good coach. He's a top 10 head coach in the NFL. He comes in, like you said, resets a culture. I think it's ultimately good for the Denver Broncos. And it's going to be worth the picks. But also, I mean, people tweeted this out. They were like, here's what the Broncos gave up for Russell Wilson and Sean Payton. And it's like first, second, first, first, second, third. And it's like, oh my god. They have no draft picks for like three years.

They are really going to feel this in five years when these guys should be in their second, third year of a rookie deal. But ultimately, I think they made the right move. They had to kind of save face a little bit.

CHARLES ROBINSON: Before we move on, real quick, one question for you. How does he fix Russ? What do you think he does to fix Russ?

FRANK SCHWAB: I just-- I don't know specifically, but I think one point that you made, which I think is very enlightening, they changed for Drew Brees late in his career. This was not the great Drew. I love Drew Brees. Like I've always thought he's underrated.

But they changed to adjust to what he didn't do well. And I think the same thing is going to happen in Denver. We're not going to see-- look, when he came in everybody, including Hackett was like this is Russell's offense. He's going to do whatever he wants. He's going to carry us. He's going to be awesome.

And that just didn't work out. Whereas Payton is going to come in and not really be beholden to Russell Wilson but say, hey, I know how to make this work. I did this with Drew Brees when he wasn't-- different ages, Russell is younger, but we also need a slippage in play we're Payton can say I've done this before with one aging quarterback. I could do it with you, but you got to trust me on this.

We're going to be a different. It's not going to be the Russ-Cook offense, but we can have success here. And after last season I don't know if Russell Wilson's in a spot where he could really argue with that. So I think you're going to see a different Denver Broncos offense. It's not high volume Russ offense we all envisioned, but until he proves otherwise he's not that dude.