Watch: Saints coach Sean Payton gets grilled on-air by his own daughter
Most parents want the same things for their kids.
We want them to be happy, we want them to be successful.
And, we’d like it if they’re respectful toward us as they grow older.
New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton has had a long offseason after his team blew a playoff game in Minnesota in epic fashion. The Vikings won the game on a miraculous touchdown reception on the final play, advancing to the NFC title game.
So Payton was kicking back in Lake Tahoe, enjoying the final days of normalcy before the start of training camp by participating in the American Century Celebrity Golf Tournament.
The tournament is always a place for media outlets to grab a bunch of interviews in a relaxed setting. The NFL Network figured it would be a great time to chat with Payton about the upcoming season.
Host Lindsay Rhodes started off with a softball question, asking about a bet Payton and Eagles head coach Doug Pederson had heading into the weekend.
At this point, it was time for a question from the intern.
Not any intern, but Meghan Payton — Sean’s daughter — who works at the network. She came out to talk with dad.
It started innocently enough, when Meghan explained how kind her father is in public when it comes to interacting with strangers.
Then it was time for the hammer.
“I want to go back to Minnesota,” Meghan asked. “There’s way more than one play that changes the game, but if you could, what would you do differently in that game?”
Coach Payton, no doubt, was a little surprised to be getting grilled by his own daughter. But he played it straight and explained that the play that kept him up at night actually happened before Stefon Diggs’ miracle touchdown.
“Meghan, thank you for taking me back to, like, such a memorable moment here in Lake Tahoe. I was enjoying my vacation,” Payton joked before providing a serious answer.
“We weren’t able to convert that third-and-1,” Payton said of a play on his team’s final drive of the game. “We kicked a field goal with 20-some seconds left in the game. Had we been able to just get the one yard, we would have easily been able to run the clock down to 3 seconds and hopefully kick the field goal and not give the Vikings another possession. So I would say that would be a play I beat myself up over, or we think about a lot and that mattered in that game a lot.”
Meghan Payton passed one test of her internship, showing that she isn’t afraid to ask the tough questions. The next test is to ask tough questions of the coaches she won’t be seeing over Thanksgiving dinner.
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