Rico Payton III, a former standout athlete at Lindbergh High School, has achieved his lifelong dream of playing in the NFL. After graduating in 2018, he continued his football career at Pittsburgh State. Despite going undrafted, he signed with the New Orleans Saints. Through impressive preseason performances, Payton earned a spot on the team's 53-man roster, fulfilling his aspirations of playing professional football.

As a Flyer, Payton was a varsity athlete for three years, shining on both sides of the ball. He was a stand out as a senior, with 96 carries for 836 yards and 17 touchdowns while hauling in 41 catches for 845 yards and 10 touchdowns totaling out to 1681 yards and 27 touchdowns. In addition to being an offensive juggernaut, Rico was a lockdown cornerback for the Flyers, known for shutting down an entire half of the field.

This lead him to finding his way to Pittsburgh State, where he was still a defensive nightmare for quarterbacks. Rico played for the Gorillas in 35 games over 4 years where he amassed 64 total tackles and 4 interceptions on 26 passes defended.

This summer, Rico went undrafted and found his way onto the New Orleans Saints pre season roster as an undrafted free agent. He made an imediate impact in training camp, making plays against the Saints top wide receivers in practice and showing that he belonged. Throughout the three pre season games the Saints had, Rico was targeted 14 times and only allowed 3 catches and being creditted with 4 pass break ups and picking up one sack.

The future is bright for this former Flyer, and we forward to watching him chase his dreams in his first regular season game as a New Orleans Saint as they host their division rival, the Carolina Panthers in the Caesars Superdome on September 8th and 12:00 pm CT on Fox.