I'm not sure if you believe in alternate universes, but there's a world out there where Sean Payton is coaching the Dallas Cowboys. You can laugh at me all you want, but it almost happened in 2020, and if this what-if became a reality, the NFL would've been flipped upside down by a major ripple effect.
While on the St. Brown Podcast on Thursday, ex-Saints' tackle Terron Armstead revealed the Saints' locker room loved Dan Campbell, so if Payton took the Dallas coaching job like he was rumored to, there would have been some legit momentum from the players to make him to the Saints' new coach.
Instead, Payton chose to remain in the Big Easy and and the Cowboys hired Mike McCarthy, while Payton came out of retirement to leave New Orleans for Denver a few seasons later. And we know how that ended up since the Broncos are better off and it made Jerry Jones look foolish once again.
But if this move actually happened like Armstead alluded to, the makeup of the entire NFC would look vastly different, so let's take a trip down the rabbit hole and see the difference.
The Dallas Cowboys nearly shook the NFL in Sean Payton pursuit
The Cowboys missed the playoffs in each of the last two seasons (although McCarthy coached only one of those), while the Broncos made the playoffs in each of the last two years. While they surfed the wave of an elite defense, Payton's work with developing Bo Nix proves why he was so coveted.
If he were in Dallas, he wouldn't have to develop a young QB when he had Dak Prescott, so if he was able to bring Vance Joseph, we wouldn't have had to endure brutal defenses in each of the last two seasons which were being led by worse fired head coaches in Mike Zimmer and Matt Eberflus.
The Cowboys part of this what-if is interesting, as maybe the 62-year-old would have helped them tap into potential they consistently failed to do with McCarthy. But they still wouldn't have been super different since Jerry Jones was the GM, but the Lions and Saints are who this what-if go bonkers.
Assuming Payton leaves for The Star and the Saints promoted Campbell to head coach, this screws over the Lions. This was the offseason before they fired Matt Patricia and hired DC, who has vastly turned around one of the most tortured franchises in the NFL, which probably never happens in this universe.
Campbell also wouldn't have been coaching Jared Goff, as he and Ben Johnson would've got to work with Drew Brees at the tail end of his career. Who knows if he ever has as much success away from Detroit or who the Lions would've hired as their new coach, but Lions fans really wanted Robert Saleh.
He ended up with the New York Jets and is now coaching the Titans, so this is a scenario that really runs deep. What's for certain is that the NFL would have drastically altered the fates of several franchises and the Cowboys definitely would have been better off having Payton the last six years.