Sean Payton signaled his intent in more ways than one on Sunday, Jan. 29.

The longtime New Orleans Saints head coach turned FOX analyst broke down the upcoming conference championship games on the air in the morning sporting a conspicuous orange tie and pocket square.

Broncos colors.

During his time in the Los Angeles studios, he also took a more tangible — and much quieter — step toward the next chapter in his career path. Payton that day jumped on Zoom for his unofficial second interview with Denver, this time with controlling owner Rob Walton and owner Carrie-Walton Penner.

“I was a backup in the FOX studio … just in the event something happened in Philadelphia with the feed. They keep a backup plan,” Payton explained.  “And I had a great visit with Carrie and her father, Rob. That was really good.”

By this point, the final stages of a five-week search that began with Nathaniel Hackett’s firing on Dec. 26 and ended, essentially, when Denver and New Orleans agreed Jan. 31 on trade compensation for the right to hire Payton, were already in motion. Broncos general manager George Paton and his Saints counterpart, Mickey Loomis, worked through the parameters of a deal for several days.

Paton and Loomis talked. Then Paton and Payton would talk. Then Paton and CEO Greg Penner. Payton and Loomis. On and on.

Finally, on Jan. 31, the general managers hit the finish line. Denver’s 2023 first-round pick (originally San Francisco’s) and 2024 second-rounder for Payton and New Orleans’ 2024 third-rounder.

Done deal. Three days later, Payton signed a five-year deal to finally, officially, become the Broncos’ new head coach.

“Patience was necessary,” Payton said. “I think in the end, it worked out exactly as I had hoped, and I think exactly as the Broncos’ ownership had hoped. It wasn’t easy, but nevertheless, nothing ever is when you go through something like this.”

Certainly Denver’s coaching search had some twists and turns between the time Penner and Paton promised a thorough process Dec. 27 and when they sat back down in the same spot at the front of the Broncos’ team room in the UC Health Training Center 41 days later flanking a man with 152 regular-season wins and a Super Bowl ring.

The process featured eight candidates, a covert trip to Michigan, unfounded rumors about hunting trips and mystery candidates and power struggles. At different times, the three men who ended up in the running for the job — Payton, Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh and San Francisco defensive coordinator DeMeco Ryans — all looked like potential frontrunners.

And, at the end, after all the zigs and zags, the Broncos ended with Payton. Right where they started, as a matter of fact.

First in line

The Broncos’ communication with Payton began before their regular season ended. They got permission from the Saints to have a preliminary conversation with him Jan. 7, the day before they finished the 2022 season with a 31-28 victory over the Chargers.

By the time Penner, Paton and limited shareholder Condoleezza Rice met Payton at a Los Angeles-area hotel at 10 a.m. Jan. 17, the Broncos had already interviewed four other candidates and Payton had been on a virtual interview with Houston, but Payton still felt as though Denver had made him a priority. The league had ruled Payton couldn’t be interviewed in person until Jan. 17 — the Tuesday after the Wild Card round concluded.

“The first day that I could be interviewed (in person), Greg, George and Condi were there at, like, breakfast time on the very first day,” he said. “I knew that meant something.”

Over the course of that 41/2 hour meeting, though, Payton couldn’t know for sure whether an NFL job would materialize for him this offseason or if he’d return to FOX for another year on television.

The day before, he said on the air he thought the trade compensation would land somewhere in the approximate value of a mid-to-late first-round pick. The day after he talked with the Broncos, a report in New Orleans pegged Loomis’ asking price closer to what Jon Gruden fetched in 2002 — two firsts, two second-rounders and $8 million.

Denver came away impressed with Payton and Payton came away impressed by the Broncos, but they were just starting to get to know each other and the trade figured to be the biggest hurdle to overcome.

Narrowing the field

The Broncos’ trio of Penner, Paton and Rice rolled through four initial interviews the first week and four more the second week, each conducted in person except for an early virtual chat with Harbaugh. After wrapping that process by meeting Ryans in the Bay Area and Dallas defensive coordinator Dan Quinn on Jan. 19 and 20, respectively, they returned to Denver to narrow the field.

“We met with eight great candidates. We learned something in each of those meetings,” Penner said. “We came away from it feeling really good about the process.”

And good enough after two weeks to narrow the field. Payton and Harbaugh figured to be in the mix from the start and Ryans impressed the group with his preparation and detail despite being a prospective first-timer, sources said.

Of that trio, the only one the Broncos hadn’t yet talked to in person was Harbaugh. So Penner flew to Michigan early in the week to meet him face-to-face despite the fact that a week earlier UM president Santa Ono put out a statement rejoicing in the fact that Harbaugh told him he’d be returning to the Wolverines for 2023.

Harbaugh’s presence loomed early that week, though public knowledge of the meeting didn’t emerge until several days after it happened. Several sources told The Post they thought Harbaugh had genuine interest in the job but that he also was difficult to pin down. In the aftermath of the meeting with the Broncos, which ended without a deal in place, one source said, “I don’t think much will come of it at this point,” but added the classic coaching search caveat: “Unless something changes.”

Instead, Ryans emerged as a strong contender as the final week of January proceeded.

On Thursday, Jan. 26, Quinn — a strong contender for the Cardinals’ still-vacant job but down the Broncos’ list some — announced he was returning to Dallas for a third season. The Post reported four others — Jim Caldwell, David Shaw, Ejiro Evero and Raheem Morris — were on the outside looking in. That left Ryans and Payton.

The same day, Payton met with Arizona and spent several hours with owner Michael Bidwell and others. All the while, however, Paton and Payton “had a lot of follow-up calls,” Paton said. The pair talked on nearly a daily basis as they continued to get to know each other.

The lack of public movement in the search led to substantial speculation but the Broncos felt like they were on course throughout the process. 

Payton even took to Twitter Jan. 26 to bat down a Washington Post report that his interview with Denver included a potential power struggle with a member of the Broncos’ ownership group, saying, “Zero truth to this. We had a great visit and Broncos Ownership was fantastic!!”

The stretch run

Word of Penner’s meeting with Harbaugh surfaced Saturday night, Jan. 28, when ESPN reported it, but perhaps the more meaningful igniter of the final stretch for the Broncos came Friday when Ryans reportedly started leaning toward Houston.

Denver didn’t conduct any formal “second round” of interviews and didn’t find it necessary to meet in person with finalists a second time before coming to a conclusion. When Ryans made it known he wanted to visit Houston after San Francisco’s NFC championship game before making a final decision, however, Broncos sources said the franchise remained interested but unwilling to sit around and wait.

That tracks with Penner’s assertion that Denver “locked in” on Payton “about five or six days before we got the trade done.”

The time between Ryans reportedly emerging as Houston’s likely hire and the completion of Denver’s trade for Payton? Five days.

Hours before Ryans’ 49ers lost to Philadelphia in the NFC title game, there was Payton on television in his orange tie, making it clear he didn’t think his chances of landing a job were dead just yet.

“No, no, no, no. There’s a handful of things still taking place,” he said within a few hours of talking via Zoom with Rob and Carrie Walton.

The finish line

Part of the complexity in trading for Payton, of course, was how much New Orleans demanded for the right to negotiate a contract with him. That part came with an inherent wrinkle: The steeper the price extracted by the Saints, the fewer resources Payton would have at his disposal upon taking a job.

“It was complex,” Payton said. “I told Greg and George that they’re making the trade, but the trade impacts me. If this trade is for this, then don’t take it because I don’t want to go if you lose that.”

That, Payton said, came with the understanding that the Broncos had to explore other options in case Denver and New Orleans simply couldn’t agree.

On Tuesday, Jan. 31, Paton and Loomis pushed toward the finish line on a trade as Ryans went to Houston for a second interview with the Texans. Denver and Payton did not want to give up their 2024 first-round pick and, given the certainty that No. 29 this year would be included, also did not want to part with its first two selections at the top of the third round in April.

Ultimately, a first-rounder and the 2024 pick swap got the job done.

“This was the opportunity I was interested in, and I know I was the coach they were interested in,” Payton said.

The Broncos pushed back hard against an NFL Network report that they made a last-ditch effort at hiring Ryans on Tuesday, saying the last contact they had with him or his agent, Jimmy Sexton, came before the NFC title game.

Though Denver had a sense of what was happening with Ryans in Houston — that the Texans announced the completion of a second interview but did not immediately say they had a deal in place hardly went unnoticed at Dove Valley — they were by that time deep into negotiations with the Saints.

“I think that DeMeco was probably talking with (Broncos limited partner) Lewis Hamilton or something, because I was on the phone with these guys the whole time,” Payton joked later, referring to Paton and Penner and the notion that the Broncos’ eyes wandered at the last minute. “I just can’t say enough about (Loomis) and the first class he showed to get the trade done. The goal all along was not only to get Sean, but also to have it be a win-win. A win for the Broncos and a win for the Saints. I think we accomplished that.”

Indeed, news of the Broncos and Saints agreeing to trade terms broke minutes before Houston announced Ryans had agreed to be its new head coach. Payton arrived in Denver on Feb. 1 and promptly set about, in his words, wearing out the path between his office and Paton’s. By Friday, he had a signed contract and the team, for the first time, could publicly acknowledge their new coach.

“It was a bit longer than we expected,” Penner said after his first NFL coaching search. “Part of that was the league rules, and part of that was the complexity of Sean’s situation with the Saints. At the end of the day, we wanted to run a comprehensive process and we wanted to be open minded. We met with eight great candidates. We learned something in each of those meetings. We came away from it feeling really good about the process.

“But the most important thing is where we ended up. Where we ended up is with the perfect coach for the Denver Broncos.”

The Timeline

A look at all of the key dates between the time the Broncos fired Nathaniel Hackett and hired Sean Payton as their next head coach:

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