Should Saints' Payton get a TV gig for the season?

For a guy who has been suspended for a year, Sean Payton sure has been busy.

He's planned the Saints' offseason, put in time for next month's NFL draft and talked to mentor Bill Parcells to see if he would be interested in running the team while Payton serves his time for allowing a bounty system.

All of this is OK with the league, because Payton's suspension doesn't begin until Sunday. But what will Payton do during his time off, since he won't be paid his reported $5.8 million salary?

After all, a guy's got to feed his family, as Latrell Sprewell famously said when he turned down a three-year, $21 million contract extension offer from the Timberwolves.

The New York Times reported this week that Fox Sports is considering having Payton join its NFC coverage team.

"Our feeling about Sean is that he's bright, articulate and obviously contemporary," Lou D'Ermilio, a Fox senior VP, told the Times. "Any network with NFL rights would have to consider it."

Apparently not any network, since NBC, CBS and ESPN each have said they wouldn't hire Payton, even though the NFL seemingly is OK with it.

"He is suspended from the NFL for the season," the league said in a statement to the Times. "His involvement in any non-NFL employment or business matters is not our decision."

Is working on an NFL broadcast team really non-NFL employment?

And although Payton won't be paid, he's still under contract with the Saints, so wouldn't it be a conflict of interest?

This article was written by Tom Couzens and appeared in the Sacramento Bee.
(Getty Images)

Posted by Necesitamos Mas Football on 12:09 p. m.. Filed under destacada , gallery , New Orleans , nfc , noticias , principal , saints , Sean Payton . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0