Saints planned to interview Mike McCarthy; McCarthy didn’t garner enough interest from Saints and will take a year off

ELLIASJWILLIAMS said
Did Payton?

Or here's another way to look at it. If you vet a guy, go through these interviews, and you agree w/ his vision...why does he have to convince you to allow him the autonomy to manifest that vision? Kind of defeats the purpose yes?

Could be. I do seem to recall that Payton didn't have as much influence early in his career, but I could be wrong.