Before Sean Payton became the coach of the Saints way back in 2006, he was just another young, up-and-coming offensive coach. It's safe to say that the Saints' decision to hire Payton more than worked out. Since Payton took over in New Orleans, he's won almost 62 percent of his games, eight playoff games, and one Super Bowl.

So it's somewhat surprising to hear Payton criticize the way in which teams have gone about hiring coaches this offseason as they all look for their own young offensive mastermind who can take their offenses to such great heights. It might be somewhat surprising, but that doesn't make it wrong. 

During a recent interview with NFL Network's Steve Wyche, Payton spoke out against the recent trend of teams targeting only young, offensive coaches, saying that teams "get so pigeonholed" trying to look for the next Sean McVay.

"I feel like I've got four or five coaches on my staff that are going to become head coaches at some point," Payton said. "The thing that can be disappointing, though, is when you talk to someone and they give you the profile and then I'll say, 'Well you're not interested in a young Bill Belichick or a young Tony Dungy?'"

"They get so pigeonholed -- because this is cyclical, right, this goes -- and ultimately you would say, if we did a little history, successful head coaches probably come from the east and the west and the north and the south. They probably come of both color, and they probably come on defense and on offense. And they're good leaders. They're great leaders. And some if you say, 'Well, I just want the one that coaches quarterbacks and they're on offense,' well then, you're going to end up with a smaller pool and you'll probably have less of a chance to be right, because already of eight hired there's going to be three that survive three years."

Payton's not wrong about any of this. There were eight coaches hired this offseason. Of those eight, six were offensive coaches, with Vic Fangio (Denver) and Brian Flores (Miami) representing the only two defensive hires. Of those six, two were incredibly inexperienced in Kliff Kingsbury (Arizona) and Zac Taylor (Cincinnati).

Kingsbury has never been a coach in the NFL and he's coming off 35-40 run as the coach at Texas Tech. Yet, because he's known as a quarterback guru for working with an assortment of NFL quarterbacks during their college years, he got an NFL head coaching job not long after Texas Tech fired him -- never mind the fact that he failed to win consistently with a quarterback as good as Patrick Mahomes.

Taylor, meanwhile, might be the best example of the McVay effect. He's been an offensive coordinator in the NFL only once before and it came on an interim basis for less than a full season. He spent one season as the offensive coordinator at the University of Cincinnati. The Bearcats averaged fewer than 20 points per game during that season. He most recently worked under McVay as the Rams' quarterbacks coach for one season and as the assistant wide receivers coach for another season. Despite his lack of experience, it didn't take him long to find a head coaching job.

Payton also addressed the NFL's diversity problem. Flores was the only minority to land a head coaching job this offseason. There are now only four minority head coaches in the NFL -- Flores, Anthony Lynn (Los Angeles Chargers), Mike Tomlin (Pittsburgh), and Ron Rivera (Carolina). 

"I think we've got a diversity problem like this season what took place, that's hitting us square in the face. I think that not a lot was written or discussed about it," Payton said. "There are a handful of coaches that I know that if I was a GM who I would be interested in hiring. So, I think more and more  it's season-by-season and it's, 'I want Alvin Kamara.' Well, you can't have him. You can go draft 10 more running backs and be 0 for 10 trying to find him -- or McVay. 

"And so I see a lot of mistakes made in that process, I feel like this long in. And so we're excited to play those teams."

None of this means that the six offensive coaches are all bound to fail and that the two defensive coaches are guaranteed to succeed. We just saw offensive coach Matt Nagy turn the Bears into a playoff team and defensive coach Matt Patricia torpedo the Lions. 

What Payton is saying is that some qualified coaches are getting overlooked by teams because teams are only interested in one specific type of coach, even if it means hiring someone who's not entirely qualified for a head coaching position. They're all looking for their next McVay when chances are, there won't be another McVay, at least not for a while anyway. For every Payton and McVay, there's a Marc Trestman and Dirk Koetter.