Sean Payton

Patrick Sean Payton (born December 29, 1963) is the current head coach of the New Orleans Saints of the National Football League. Payton was a quarterback at Naperville Central High School and Eastern Illinois University and played professionally in 1987 and 1988. He began his coaching career as offensive assistant for San Diego State University football and had several assistant coaching positions in collegiate and NFL teams. From 2003 to 2005, Payton worked as quarterback coach of the Dallas Cowboys NFL team; since 2006, Payton has been the head coach of the New Orleans Saints.

Under Payton, the New Orleans Saints made the 2006 NFL playoffs after a 3–13 season in 2005, and Payton won the AP NFL Coach of the Year Award because of this effort. Following the 2009 season, the New Orleans Saints won the Super Bowl championship.

Early life
Payton was born in San Mateo, California and raised in Naperville, Illinois by parents Thomas and Jeanne Payton. Payton's parents were originally from Scranton, Pennsylvania; Thomas worked in the insurance industry. Sean Payton lived in Newtown Square, Pennsylvania during his grade school and middle school years (1970 to 1978). Sean attended Naperville Central High School in Naperville, IL, starting as quarterback his senior year before graduating in 1982. Winning a football scholarship, Payton had a successful career playing quarterback at Eastern Illinois University, leading the Panthers to an 11–2 record and the quarter-finals of the Division I-AA Playoffs in 1986; while at EIU, he became a member of the Sigma Chi Fraternity. Under coach Al Molde, Payton's Eastern Illinois teams were known as "Eastern Airlines" due to their prolific passing attack that frequently topped 300 yards per game (and had 509 passing yards in one game, still a school record).

Playing career
Although he was not drafted in the 1987 NFL Draft, Payton tried out for the Kansas City Chiefs for one day. In 1987, he played quarterback for the Chicago Bruisers and Pittsburgh Gladiators during the inaugural season of the Arena Football League, before his rights were sold for $1,000.00 to the Ottawa Rough Riders of the CFL. He was also a member of the Chicago Bears squad of strikebreaking replacement players (scabs), known as the "Spare Bears", during the 1987 NFL players strike. In 3 games he completed 8 of 23 passes (34.8%), for 79 yards, 0 TDs, and 1 INT, for a QB Rating of 7.3. He was also sacked 7 times for 47 yards and had one rush attempt for 28 yards.

In 1988, he played for the Leicester Panthers of the semi-professional UK Budweiser National League. Payton landed the starting quarterback role for the Panthers. Payton led the Panthers to a touchdown on the first possession. That same season saw the Panthers go to the Quarterfinals of the British League, eventually losing to the London Olympians after Payton had returned early to the US to take up a coaching position.

Early coaching career
Payton began his coaching career in 1988 as an offensive assistant at San Diego State University. He made a series of assistant coaching positions at Indiana State University, Miami University (quarterbacks coach), Illinois, and again at San Diego State (running backs coach), before landing a job as the quarterbacks coach with the Philadelphia Eagles in 1997.

Philadelphia Eagles (Quarterbacks Coach)
From 1997 to 1998, Sean Payton was quarterbacks coach for the Philadelphia Eagles and worked with offensive coordinator Jon Gruden and offensive line coach Bill Callahan. In 1998, Gruden and Callahan left for the Oakland Raiders, and Eagles head coach Ray Rhodes and Payton were fired. The Eagles' quarterbacks passed for 4,009 yards in 1997.

New York Giants (Assistant Coach)
In 1999 Sean Payton was hired as the quarterback coach for the New York Giants and was promoted to the role of offensive coordinator in 2000. Under his guidance the Giants would go on to represent the NFC in Super Bowl XXXV. During this time he was known to lock himself in the stadium and sleep on the couches while studying plays on off-days.

At around 6:45 a.m. on September 11, 2001, the New York Giants' flight from Denver, where the Giants played the Denver Broncos for the first Monday Night Football game of 2001, landed at the gate of Newark Liberty International Airport next to United Airlines Flight 93, the flight that was hijacked and eventually crashed in rural Pennsylvania. Payton recalls this moment in his autobiography Home Team: Coaching the Saints and New Orleans Back to Life. During the 2002 season, after several poor showings by the Giants' offense, Payton's role in play-calling was taken over by then head coach Jim Fassel. Under Fassel the offense improved and propelled the team to a wild-card playoff berth. While Payton was still ostensibly in charge of the offense, his role in the team was clearly diminished and had he not been hired away by the Dallas Cowboys, he likely would have been fired.

Dallas Cowboys (Assistant Coach)
Payton joined Bill Parcells and the Cowboys as assistant head coach and quarterbacks coach in 2003, where he helped coach Quincy Carter, Vinny Testaverde, and Drew Bledsoe to 3,000-yard seasons.

In 2005, he was promoted by Parcells to assistant head coach/passing game coordinator.

New Orleans Saints (Head Coach)
Payton received his first head coaching job in 2006 with the New Orleans Saints. The team had previously finished the 2005 season with a 3–13 record, ranking as the second worst team in the league. However, Payton turned the struggling team around, and, with newly acquired Drew Brees as quarterback, led them to their first playoff appearance in six years, all in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The team had one of the league’s most productive offenses, ranking first in passing, and fifth in points scored. The Saints won the NFC South with a 10–6 record, and progressed to the NFC Championship Game against the top-seeded Chicago Bears. The Saints out-gained the Bears in offense, but lost the game by a score of 39–14. With 44 out of 50 votes from a panel of sports journalists and broadcasters, Payton won the AP NFL Coach of the Year Award in January 2007.

In the 2007 season, the Saints tried to improve upon their 10–6 record from last season. They and the Pittsburgh Steelers opened the NFL preseason, playing the Hall of Fame Game on August 5, 2007. The Saints were 3–2 in the pre-season. The Saints also had the honor of opening the season against the defending champion Indianapolis Colts. The Saints finished the 2007 season 7–9.

In 2009 Payton aggressively coached the Saints to their most successful season, with a 13–3 regular season, and a 31–17 victory over the Indianapolis Colts in Super Bowl XLIV. This was the Saints first Super Bowl victory, and secured Payton as the most successful coach in franchise history.

In June 2010 Payton published a book (written with journalist Ellis Henican) entitled Home Team: Coaching the Saints and New Orleans Back to Life. The book opened at number 8 on the non-fiction bestseller list of The New York Times. Payton described the concept of Home Team: "I didn't want to write another winning-on-the-field book or about modern-day leadership...I wanted to write a book about the stories, ones that you sit around and tell your friends."

On October 16, 2011, while coaching against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Payton broke his tibia and tore his MCL in a collision with tight end Jimmy Graham's helmet after Graham was tackled on the sideline.

Coaching tree
NFL head coaches under whom Sean Payton has served:
 * Ray Rhodes, Philadelphia Eagles (1997–1998)
 * Jim Fassel, New York Giants (1999–2002)
 * Bill Parcells, Dallas Cowboys (2003–2005)

Assistant coaches under Sean Payton who became NFL head coaches:
 * None

Personal life
Sean Payton is married to Beth Shuey and has two children, daughter Meghan (born 1996) and son Connor (born 1999). While coaching at Indiana State, Payton met Shuey, a graduate of the university. Payton is an Irish Catholic. Payton and his family live in Mandeville, Louisiana Their newly-constructed home there was constructed with defective Chinese drywall, and Payton eventually became a named plaintiff in a widely-reported class action lawsuit against Knauf Plasterboard Tianjin Co. Ltd., the drywall manufacturer. He recently purchased a home in the Dallas/Fort Worth suburb of Westlake, Texas.