The Denver market hasn’t really gone down this rabbit hole but it’s been known for several years that Sean Payton was about to become the next head coach of the Dallas Cowboys until Anthony Davis requested a trade from the New Orleans Pelicans.

Yes that string of words you just read is correct.

But the report became relevant in the past few days because Terron Armstead jumped on the St. Brown Podcast and was asked for his Dan Campbell thoughts by Lions star Amon-Ra St. Brown. Armstead shared to some extent he was hoping to get Payton out of the city and make Campbell the Saints head coach. And that was on the table because Payton almost got the gig running the Cowboys.

“We were like…. if Sean Payton goes to Dallas, Dan Campbell gonna be our head coach.”

Five-time Pro Bowl OT Terron Armstead reveals that, if Sean Payton had taken the Cowboys job back in 2019, the players would’ve pushed hard for Dan Campbell to be the new Saints head coach pic.twitter.com/feu46efW2R

— St. Brown Podcast (@StBrownPodcast) February 19, 2026

Here’s the report from Mike Florio’s 2022 book Playmakers.

 

It was a delicate situation, for various reasons. First, the Cowboys had a coach. Jones wouldn’t have fired Garrett unless he knew he could have gotten Payton. Second, league rules (specifically, the Rooney Rule) require a diverse and inclusive search. Third, Jones had to ultimately know that, after going through the motions of a search, he’d be able to get Payton.

So a deal was worked out, behind the scenes. The Saints would have allowed the Cowboys to hire Payton. The Cowboys would have compensated the Saints for the rights to Payton’s contract. And Payton would have signed a new contract with the Cowboys.

It was ready to go. It was happening. It was locked, and it was loaded. Then came Monday, January 28. On that day, New Orleans Pelicans forward Anthony Davis announced he would not sign another contract with the team, and he requested a trade. (In July, the Pelicans traded him to the Lakers.)

Gayle Benson owns both the Pelicans and the Saints. Saints G.M. Mickey Loomis was, as of January 2019, the executive vice president of basketball operations with the Pelicans. Once Davis made clear his intention to leave New Orleans, Loomis told Payton that Loomis couldn’t be the common thread between a pair of such high-profile Louisiana departures.

That ended it, just like that. The Saints were no longer interested in essentially trading Payton to the Cowboys. In September, Payton signed a new contract. That deal has three years left on it.

Florio published that account in 2022 — nearly a year before the Broncos fired Nathaniel Hackett and then traded for Payton, signing him to a five-year deal. But the what-ifs extend beyond the sideline.

It’s an interesting what-if not only for the Broncos and Cowboys but also for the Lakers and Nuggets. As Los Angeles paired Anthony Davis with LeBron James, becoming a formidable duo against Denver in the 2020 playoffs, where they beat the Nuggets in the Western Conference Finals en route to their championship. But again the squads met again in 2023, and Nikola Jokic and Jamal Murray authored some of the best moments in Nuggets history in sweeping Davis, James and the Lakers en route to a title. How much of this era of Denver hoops changes if Davis never goes to L.A.?

From the Broncos side, it’s unlikely Payton is the coach today if the Cowboys got him, like they always seemingly wanted to. Denver would’ve had to go another route when they fired Nathaniel Hackett and at that point does the team find the right leader and would they still land Bo Nix?

But going back, the only time Payton met the Broncos after the Cowboys deal fell through was the Kendall Hinton game. Does that change somehow if the Saints are led by another man? Does the Broncos dominant decades-long streak against the Cowboys hold up if Payton goes there?

Davis wanting out of New Orleans might be the best thing that ever happened to Denver sports. The Nuggets got their championship villain and eventual title, and the Broncos got their coach — all because Loomis didn’t want to lose two stars in the same news cycle.