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Did Sean Payton accidentally reveal that 2020 is Drew Brees' final season?

New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton is continuing to recover from his bout with the coronavirus, but he’s well enough to appear on TV (from his living room, of course) and talk shop about the upcoming NFL season. Payton did just that on ESPN’s “Get Up” on Tuesday morning, but he might have talked a little too much shop.

During a conversation about quarterback Taysom Hill, Payton referred to 2020 as Brees’ “final season.” You can catch that slip-of-the-tongue around the 1:05 mark in the video below.

“The unique situation with our team and with our quarterback Drew Brees is, he’s announced he’s coming back for his final season ...”

If that’s true, it would be significant since Brees hasn’t indicated that 2020 is his NFL swan song. He even signed a two-year, $50 million contract with the Saints in mid-March.

While we don’t know if what Payton said is true, Brees possibly retiring after the 2020 season is far from surprising. He’s 41 and has been in the NFL for 19 seasons, and now he has Hill nipping at his heels. Brees even said in January that he’d be open to Hill taking some snaps in 2020.

Despite Brees’ age and the other mitigating factors, it’s still not certain that he would retire at the end of the 2020 season — or even that he should. He missed six games in 2019 with a torn thumb ligament, but he still had a better-than-average season. And 2019 was the first time he missed a significant number of games since 2003!

The decision to retire is entirely up to Brees. He’ll tell the world about it whenever he’s ready — even though his coach might have accidentally let the cat out of the bag a little early.

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