Sean Payton Literally Paid $250k of Gregg Williams' Salary

Sacrificing a paycheck in order to bring another high profile player to a team is one of the truly selfless things that an athlete can do. Really, the willingness to make only a few million dollars instead of many millions of dollars is an act that often goes unnoticed. But you almost never hear of it from a coaching perspective.

However, giving up part of his salary for the betterment of his coaching staff is exactly what Sean Payton recently did, according to Jay Glazer (via LBS), offering up a quarter million bucks of his salary towards Gregg Williams' first year paycheck, just in order to land the defensive coordinator.

In the end, Williams chose the Saints, largely because of the firepower of the offense and even the chance to work on the same team with ultra-professional Drew Brees. But in order to lock him up, the Saints needed to come up with some more cash for the contract.

It came from a very unlikely place. FOX Sports has learned that Saints head coach Sean Payton wanted Williams so much that he is actually giving up $250,000 of his own salary and shifting it to Williams' first year of his deal in order to sweeten the pot. Not sure I've ever heard of a head coach going that far to get his guy.

Pretty impressive move by Payton, I suppose, although in order to really be successful, the Saints need their defense to be "less horrible." And Williams can assist New Orleans in doing that, but if the Saints front office wasn't willing to pony up the cheddar to land him, it kind of makes one question their commitment to winning. That isn't an issue with Payton though, obviously.