If there is any truth in the chatter, 2022 could be a major year of foundation-shaking change for the New Orleans Saints. Rumors have been swirling that coach Sean Payton may not be in the Crescent City for much longer.
According to someone who said something to someone else which one of our reporters overheard, Payton might perhaps possibly soon be leaving New Orleans and the Saints for what sources close to the coach said would be his “dream” job.
The GAP, where Payton worked as a stock boy for one week as a teenager, is reportedly highly interested in pursuing the Saints coach to be their next head coordinator of merchandising.
Edmund Khaki Fancypants VIII is set to be a lame-duck coordinator of merchandising as he begins the final year of his contract. When he disappoints, and he will, CEO Art Peck will almost certainly fire the longtime coordinator after the holiday season. That would provide an opening for Payton to jump jobs in 2023 and signal to fans of the GAP that Peck is willing to make a splash move to reinvigorate the downtrodden brand.
“Sean Payton may not have been there long [at GAP] but he thoroughly enjoyed figuring out ways to best utilize all the pieces, so going back to where he got his start makes sense,” said a seductively intriguing source behind a closed changing room door of GAP at Lakeside Mall in Metairie.
“He’d create these vast plans of where the stock should go to capture the eye, forcing customers to look where he wanted them to and he’d capitalize on that. He was a precocious genius who got bored because management wouldn’t listen to the ideas of a lowly ‘stock boy.’ GAP didn’t know what they had at the time or else they would have locked him in long-term right then and there.”
It’s unclear how much of the rumor is true, but there’s clearly enough there as The GAP has been struggling for much of the last two decades and is desperately searching for some kind of spark to recapture its glory years.
“They can no longer coast on what they once were and they know that,” said GAP beat writer for ESPN Omry Vesticles. “Wins have been few and far between, sales have been flat, and they need a new strategy. Sean Payton represents a return to relevance.”
Payton possibly falling into The Gap makes sense. However, with a team close to Super Bowl contention because it finally boasts a top defense and his potential role as the next great Saints quarterback, the coach since 2006 has a lot to think about over the coming months.