I feel Payton Manning would be a tremendous asset to our team.
He is so good, that trying to fit into an existing type of position would either limit his contributions or require him to take responsibility for work that is secondary to his interests. I suggest a new position be created. I would call it the Advisor to the Head Coach. This is not an assistant, but an independent advisor. This would be something like being on a board of directors, but in this case the board would be Payton and the CEO would be Adam Gase. It would be entirely play related.
All organizations require a management structure to function reliably. In this organization he would do just what his title says. This position would allow Payton to focus on plays for both the Offense and Defense. Remember that for his entire career he ran an offence and read defenses. Let him continue to do that without imposing any secondary constraints on him as part of the job. He would advise the head coach about plays, their potential, new wrinkles that would make them more effective and defensively, what could work best against opposing teams defenses.
Payton would interact with the head coach in developing new plays or could respond to specific requests from the head coach about plays and play related subjects. Payton and the coach would have free access to each other. This is an advisory position only, with all decisions and responsibility residing with the head coach.
This would free Payton from player supervision and other administrative details, while allowing him do what he loves - thinking about football plays and how they interact. He might expand his input into draft selection, free agent selection, Quarterback development and long term team planning, along with anything else if he feels is pertinent to play development.
What made Payton's relationship with Adam Gase special was that the two of them shared the same mentality and work ethic. They have earned each others respect. This position would let Payton follow his football related interests without imposing on him those normal management functions that are typically more clerical, or off target. He gets all the good without any of the bad associated with most jobs. I think this might be his dream job. He could even take the weekends off, if you could keep him from following the games.
This type of position would probably not work as well for Payton with any other team, because of the potential for friction with a head coach.
Making a position like this available for Payton would be great not only for the results we could expect, but it would also identify the Dolphins as a leader, not a follower in the competitive world of the NFL. I have no doubts other teams would eventually create a position like this for their teams It has the advantage of not affecting the cap!
I wonder if there is a chance that Payton would be willing to pay the Dolphins for this kind of opportunity?
