It’s critical for an NFL coach and an NFL General Manager to be on the same page, at all times. And it’s ideal for the coach and G.M. to work together, and remain together, as long as possible.
Sean Payton had that in New Orleans, where he partnered with G.M. Mickey Loomis for Payton’s entire 16-year tenure with the team. Payton has it now in Denver, with G.M. George Paton.
In the wake of Paton signing a new contract that runs through 2030 (his prior deal was due to expire after 2026), Payton was asked at a rookie minicamp press conference about the Payton-Paton partnership.
“I said this to [Paton] the other day, and look — in our league, it’s almost half the battle,” Payton said. “I said to him, I said, ‘Man, I consider myself very fortunate to have been with one General Manager in New Orleans who I would call a very close friend and a great working partner,’ and then to find another person like George.
“I know that we both feel the same way. We love the grind together. He’s a tremendous asset and all, and he’s very good at what he does. I think we complement each other. I am super excited for him. I said that to you guys at the Combine, it was just a matter of time. We think alike in a lot of cases.”
Paton, who got the job both before Payton was hired and before current ownership bought the team, has thrived due to his ability both to do the basic requirements of the job and to navigate working with the other key members of a pro football operation.
It’s about finding the right way to work toward the same goal and, most importantly, it’s about figuring out how to weather the periodic and inevitable storms in a way that strengthens the relationships. Those who can set aside their personal interests for the greater good tend to figure it out.
Paton has done that. Payton has done that. It’s no surprise that the Broncos have become a short-list championship contender, or that the franchise has had a record rate of season-ticket renewals. After a long stretch of struggling since turning the final year of the Peyton Manning era into a Super Bowl win, the new Pa(y)tons have turned the Broncos into a team that could win another one.
Or maybe two.
Saints Clips
The Saints have signed all eight of their draft picks.
Seven of the selections, including first-round wideout Jordyn Tyson, signed with the team on Friday and second-round defensive tackle Christen Miller made it a full set on Saturday. Miller signed a four-year deal with the club,
Miller was the 10th pick in the second round last month. He finished his time at Georgia by posting 23 tackles, four tackles for loss and 1.5 sacks in 14 games last season.
With all of their picks signed, the Saints can now put their full attention on getting the eight players ready to contribute this fall.
The NFL will announce the full 2026 schedule on Thursday, May 14, but the league’s international slate of games will be revealed earlier than the domestic ones.
The matchups for this year’s international games will be announced on NFL Network at 9 a.m. eastern time on Wednesday.
Nine international games are on the docket this year, but the matchups for two of them have already been announced. The 49ers and Rams will meet up in Melbourne in Week 1 and the Cowboys will face the Ravens in Rio in Week 3.
One team in each of the other seven games is already known. The Jaguars will play in London twice and the Commanders will be involved in the city’s third game. The 49ers will be in Mexico City, the Falcons will be in Madrid, the Lions will be in Munich and the Saints will take part in the NFL’s first game in Paris.
The Saints have signed seven of their eight draft picks, including first-rounder Jordyn Tyson.
Tyson joined the team as the eighth overall pick last month and was the second wide receiver to come off the board in the first round. He had 158 catches for 2,822 yards and 22 touchdowns in 33 games at Arizona State.
It’s a four-year deal for Tyson with a team option for a fifth season. He will make $32.49 million in his first four seasons.
New Orleans also signed third-round tight end Oscar Delp, fourth-round guard Jeremiah Wright, fourth-round wide receiver Bryce Lance, fifth-round safety Lorenzo Styles, sixth-round wide receiver Barion Brown, and seventh-round cornerback TJ Hall.
The Saints added another undrafted rookie to their 90-man roster on Thursday.
Defensive lineman Zxavian Harris is the newest addition in New Orleans. The Saints signed 10 other undrafted free agents recently and the team will hold its rookie minicamp this weekend.
Harris is not expected to take part in any on-field work during that session. Nick Underhill of NewOrleans.Football reports that he is still recovering from March foot surgery.
The foot issue helps explain why Harris went undrafted despite being projected as a mid-round pick. He had 58 tackles, nine tackles for loss, three sacks, and an interception to wrap up a four-year run at Ole Miss that was marred by a pair of arrests that may have also contributed to teams passing him over last month.
Jameis Winston is going to eat a W this summer. Along with the rest of the letters that spell, “World Cup.”
Fox has announced that Winston will serve as a correspondent for its coverage of the FIFA World Cup, to be played throughout North America in June and July.
Winston, the first pick in the 2015 NFL draft, has gone from five-year starter in Tampa Bay to backup who periodically gets the call to play.
From 2015 to 2019, Winston started 70 games with the Buccaneers. Since 2020, he has started 19 games while playing for the Saints, Browns, and Giants.
On the media side, he first rose to prominence while working for Fox during the week of Super Bowl LIX. He also appeared on the Netflix broadcast of MLB’s opening night in 2026.
Winston will be able to waltz into a media career, whenever he’s ready to make the transition. For now, Fox seems to be the favorite to eventually turn temporary assignments into something more permanent.
Kicker Younghoe Koo will take a shot at earning a job with the Saints this weekend.
The team’s roster for this weekend’s rookie minicamp shows that the former Falcons and Giants kicker will attend the camp on a tryout basis.
Koo was released by the Falcons after missing a game-tying field goal at the end of a Week 1 loss to the Buccaneers and then appeared in five games with the Giants later in the season. The most memorable moment of that run came when Koo failed to hit the ball on a field goal attempt in a loss to the Patriots, although the embarrassing moment wound up having a positive outcome for a Kentucky man who discovered he had a brain tumor after laughing himself into a seizure in the wake of Koo’s miscue.
Koo was 4-of-6 on field goals and 11-of-12 on extra points while with the Giants. He is 185-of-217 on field goals and 186-of-194 on extra points for his career.
Charlie Smyth is the returning kicker in New Orleans. The Saints also signed undrafted free agent Mason Shipley.
The Saints will host two veteran quarterbacks at their rookie minicamp.
Kyle Trask and Easton Stick are among the players trying out this weekend, Nick Underhill of NewOrleans.Football reports. They will join rookie free agents Kaleb Blaha from Wisconsin-River Falls and Braylon Braxton from Southern Mississippi in a competition for the fourth spot on the depth chart.
Tyler Shough, Spencer Rattler and Zach Wilson are the top quarterbacks heading into organized team activities.
Trask, 28, entered the NFL as a second-round pick of the Bucs in 2022. He spent last season with the Falcons.
Trask has played seven regular-season games but has never started, going 4-for-11 for 28 yards.
Stick, 30, played for Saints head coach Kellen Moore with the Chargers in 2023. He was a fifth-round pick of the Chargers in 2019 and has appeared in six games with four starts, completing 64 percent of his passes for 1,133 yards with three touchdowns and one interception.
Alvin Kamara didn’t specifically address his plans for next season during an interview on Terron Armstead’s podcast The Set, but the running back sounds like he wants to play for the Saints this season.
The Saints signed running back Travis Etienne to a four-year, $52 million deal in free agency.
“I think a lot of people be thinking there’s a beef or something when moves like this happen,” Kamara said. “It’s like, shoot, I couldn’t be happier. One, my boy got paid, and two, ain’t nothing but some help in the backfield. That’s the name of the game. One person can’t do it by themselves. I’m cool with it. Whichever direction that we can take it, I’m with it. I haven’t had too much a chance to talk to him, but definitely excited that he’s got a fleur-de-lis on his helmet, and he got paid.”
The Saints tweaked Kamara’s contract earlier this offseason making it easier to trade him or release him after June 1. That is what has prompted speculation about Kamara’s future, with the Saints committing only to the fact that Kamara is currently on the roster.
Kamara is scheduled to count $10.45 million against the salary cap.
He might have to take a pay cut to stay with the team that drafted him in 2017, but it sounds like a 10th season in New Orleans is what he wants.
Kamara said he watched Etienne in Jacksonville and is “excited to see what we can do together.”
Kamara and Mark Ingram formed a potent one-two punch for four seasons. In 2017-18, they combined for 3,380 rushing yards and 40 rushing touchdowns.
“I think that’s what we trying to find. Me and Mark set the bar very high. That’s what efficiency looks like on a very high level,” Kamara said. “I’m 100 percent for it. If that’s what direction we’re going in, I’m with it. I think we can get there.”
The Cowboys traded up one spot before taking safety Caleb Downs in the first round of this year’s draft, but that deal only came after an attempt to move even higher was rebuffed.
A clip from ESPN’s The Pick Is In shows Browns general manger Andrew Berry fielding a call from Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones while on the clock at No. 9. Berry turned down Dallas’s offer of their No. 12 and No. 20 picks for No. 9 and No. 24, and he did not change his mind when Jones offered to add a fifth-round pick to the offer.
The offer suggests the Cowboys thought that the Giants were going to take Downs at No. 10 as that was a frequent link during the mock draft season. The Giants wound up taking tackle Francis Mauigoa and the Cowboys wound up sending two fifth-rounders to the Dolphins to move up to No. 11 for Downs. They later traded down three spots from No, 20 and picked up two fourth-round picks.
The Browns took tackle Spencer Fano at No. 9 and another clip from the show features Berry talking to the Browns’ draft room after they traded down from No. 6 into that spot. He said Fano, Mauigoa and wide receiver Jordyn Tyson were the players the team was considering at No. 9 and Tyson went to New Orleans at No. 8, so another move down may have left them without all of their preferred options with their first of two first-round picks.
