Former New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton is certainly qualified to analyze the NFL playoffs and deliver assessments that many teams themselves would be interested in. Payton marched his Saints to a Super Bowl victory in 2009 and wields some of the most impressive coaching credentials you'll find on any NFL resume. The former New Orleans head coach may or may not be pacing the sidelines next year but he is wasting no time laying out some candid NFL analysis of the playoffs.

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Ryan Talbot, who's appeared on the The Drive with Charlie & Dan, of syracuse.com broke down Payton's conversation with Peter King of NBC sports on Monday Morning Quarterback (MMQB). I had a lot of questions about Buffalo's choice with 13 seconds left to kick the ball out of the end zone. My first thought was to squib kick or pop-up kick. Sean Payton put those questions to bed.

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He told King, “A lot of it depends on my kicker. If I’ve got a young kicker I’m not sure I can trust, I will not squib kick. You can’t risk the kick going out of bounds, or being recovered at the 40. I also don’t like trying a pop-up kick to land at the eight- or 10-yard line. I’m not asking a kicker to use a technique, seldom-used, to place a kick somewhere that might determine whether you go to the championship game. I’m probably just kicking the ball deep into the end zone and giving them the ball at the 25, like Buffalo did.”

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The kind words from Sean Payton took a turn when discussing the Bills defense. It seemed like Payton didn't care for the plan set forward by Sean McDermott and Leslie Frazier in the waning seconds of regulation against Kansas City. “The crime that is committed comes after that (referring to the kick-off)” said Payton. The former Saints head coach said, "...you can’t be defending the sidelines at all costs, like Buffalo was. You see when Travis Kelce catches that long pass to put them in field-goal range, a cornerback is defending an area of the field near the sidelines he doesn’t need to defend. Kansas City’s got two timeouts left—they don’t need to get out of bounds. Everything about what Buffalo did defensively is flawed. We would play outside man technique with a three-man rush, funneling balls to the middle of the field and contesting outside technique.”

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Payton may be right. Who knows? I guess that is why the segment is called 'Monday Morning Quarterback.' It's for guys who aren't busy preparing for the next playoff game. Interesting that Sean Payton is so vocal regarding other teams deficiencies after he resigns from his position with the New Orleans Saints. Many feel Payton left because he has no quarterback and the team he constructed is in salary cap hell, for lack of a better term. The Buffalo Bills will be back next year in late January and hopefully February. Sean Payton left the New Orleans Saints a few years away from the playoffs and he left. Maybe, that's the true crime.

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