Sean Payton was a candidate for several head coaching jobs before reaching an agreement with the Broncos that will take him back to the sidelines after a year spent working at Fox Sports.
Payton’s colleague in the television business Terry Bradshaw made headlines earlier this week when he said that Payton did not pursue a coaching opportunity with the Cardinals because “he didn’t want to work with” quarterback Kyler Murray in Arizona. Payton got a chance to respond to that during an appearance on FanDuel TV’s “Up and Adams” on Thursday.
Payton said that “I don’t hate Kyler Murray” and called the quarterback “extremely talented” before explaining why he thought Bradshaw made comments that also suggested Payton isn’t crazy about working with Russell Wilson in Denver.
“I think from Terry’s perspective, I know he would have felt better if I was coming back to Fox, so there wasn’t going to be anyone good enough, in his eyes, for me,” Payton said. “He was going to look at it like, ‘He’s not going there, he’s not going there, he’s not gonna go there.’”
Payton said that he thinks the Cardinals have “similar challenges” to the ones that the Broncos face when it comes to establishing a better culture, but that the Broncos were a “different fit” when it came to his alignment with ownership and the front office. The Cardinals have not found the right fit for their coaching job yet and a hire is not expected to happen until after the Super Bowl on Sunday.
