Sean Payton Injury: New Orleans Saints Need Their Head Coach on Sidelines

The New Orleans Saints' success has much to do with their young head coach Sean Payton, but from the looks of the injury he sustained in Sunday’s game, he won’t be on the sidelines for the next few weeks.

I know what you’re asking yourself: what’s the big deal?

To that, I say look at the history of this exact same situation to see that it hardly ever plays out well for the teams and coaches involved.

Payton didn’t sprain his ankle or cut his foot; no, the coach was rolled up on by tight end Jimmy Graham and tore the MCL and fractured the tibia in his left leg.

Payton told ESPN about the severity of the injury and his inability to even coach the team from the press box Sunday:

"

Because it's a fracture it's different. If it's the MCL you can have the brace, but the fracture on the outside means the weight bearing part of it really changes. I think my initial plan was to go up in the (coaches') box. The problem was just dealing with some of the pain issues.

"

If he was a player we would be talking about a year of recovery time before that athlete was back on the field, but since he is a coach the team doesn’t expect him to miss any game time.

And the Saints need him now more than ever.

New Orleans went on to lose their game Sunday to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 26-20, and there is a feeling that they needed the ideas and guidance of their head coach in crunch time to sneak that victory out.

The Saints didn’t have him then, and they will only have him in the press box for the next few weeks.

While still having Peyton in the press box is better than nothing, if similar injuries to Charlie Weis and Joe Paterno have showed us anything, it’s that the time it takes to get plays down to the field from the box and the lag it produces affects the game.

Whether its timeouts or challenges, there needs to be a fast system in place for the Saints or this whole situation could get real ugly.

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