Taysom Hill Confirms He Won’t Return to the Saints: The Broncos Reunion With Sean Payton Feels Inevitable
Taysom Hill and the New Orleans Saints are officially done. He wrote his goodbye on X, thanked the city, and said “returning to New Orleans is not in the cards.”
Hill made the announcement in a thank you message to Saints fans, but he was careful to note that he does not know what comes next. “I still don’t have a clear answer about what the future holds,” he wrote. What he does know is that he is not going back to the team that gave him his career.
He became an unrestricted free agent in March. The offseason came and went. Nobody came calling with the number that made sense. Now, in August, he is a 35-year-old Swiss Army knife looking for a team that knows how to use him.
The Denver Broncos are the obvious answer. Sean Payton is the head coach in Denver. Payton is also the head coach who claimed Hill off waivers back in 2017 in New Orleans and turned him from a curious college quarterback into the most unique offensive weapon of his generation. Payton knows how to design a game plan around Hill. He has done it before. He can do it again.
The Broncos have a young starting quarterback in Bo Nix. They also have a coach who has never met a quarterback situation he did not want to over-complicate. Hill fits Payton’s offense perfectly as a package player. He can spell Nix on specific plays, he can run the goal-line stuff, he can play tight end in certain personnel groupings, he can even take a series or two if Nix needs a breather in a lopsided game. That is the Payton toolkit.
The other options are thinner. Hill’s value has always been tied to a coach who is willing to design 15 to 20 plays a game specifically for him. Not every offensive coordinator wants to do that. It requires practice reps and a specific style of offensive personality. Most offensive coordinators would rather just have a normal backup quarterback and a normal tight end.
Kellen Moore in New Orleans had shown some interest in figuring out how to use Hill, but by all accounts, the Saints and Hill just could not find a fit that worked for both sides in 2026. The Saints are trying to move to a more traditional offensive structure with Spencer Rattler getting real reps at quarterback. Hill was always more of a Payton-specific weapon than a system-neutral player. Getting the old boss back into his life is the logical career move.
Hill has been in the league since 2017. He is 35 and has taken a serious pounding. His body has been through it. But the guy still runs like a freight train when he gets the ball, still catches passes at a real rate when they put him at tight end, and still has one of the more valuable third-down skill sets in football.
Denver is not a lock. But the fit is so obvious that if it does not happen, it would be a genuine surprise. Payton likes his old weapons. Hill needs an offense that will use him.
Book it.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
