Home Team

by Sean Payton

  By the second day at Hotel Hell, Gary and I had run out of patience with that dump. “All right,” I told Gary, “we’re not gonna be in this hotel long.” When we got to the office, I went in to see Mickey immediately.

  “If we want any chance of hiring any coaches or signing any players,” I said, “the last place we want to put them is in that hotel.” He laughed and agreed, and we moved to the Airport Hilton. That was one of the few places that had hunkered down and stayed open during the whole mess of Katrina. They could handle a wake-up call. They had a housekeeping staff. They had a restaurant, even if the menu was somewhat limited. I can still recite to you verbatim every item they had. We ate there almost every night. Most important, they had a general manager named Craig Mooney who understood the idea of service, even at a difficult time. He was a great role model for a city pulling itself back up. He never blamed anything on Katrina. That hotel was our home for seven months while we began to build a football team.

  Every day, I would go into the office on Airline Drive. I say the office, not my office. My office wasn’t ready yet. Lots of things around the office weren’t ready yet. The Saints staff was still getting settled back in New Orleans after San Antonio. They were still having trouble finding painters and carpenters. But we had to get started, nice accommodations or not. And we did.

  Mickey and I would sit there with two depth charts on the wall of my makeshift work space, going through the personnel. One chart was coaches. The other was players. Who was already here? Who did we have a chance of getting? What were our biggest needs? The needs were so great, it was hard to know even where to begin.

  Priority number one: hiring a coaching staff. I would need sixteen, seventeen, maybe eighteen assistant coaches. That’s what it takes to run an NFL team. I had to find them, hire them, convince them to come and get them on board.

  The Senior Bowl is held in Mobile every January. It’s a two-hour drive from New Orleans, and it’s also a place to hire coaches. I was interviewing a defensive line coach by the name of Bill Kollar. He flew into New Orleans. We interviewed at the Saints complex, and he traveled with me to Mobile. The drive from New Orleans to Mobile after Katrina, if you hadn’t seen it already, might have been the worst two-hour stretch of highway on Earth. For a good year after Katrina, it was like that.

  There were boats on the side of the road. Casinos that had moved and tumbled. Just unthinkable devastation all along this road. At one point Bill said, “You know, you’re lucky my kids are out of the house or you’d have no chance of hiring me.” Two days later he took the same job with the Buffalo Bills.

  I tried to get permission to hire Tony Sparano from the Dallas Cowboys. He was under contract. That permission was denied by Parcells. I tried to hire Dave Magazu of the Carolina Panthers. Permission denied. Aaron Kromer, Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Permission denied. These were guys I knew well and had worked with.

  I got a call about Pete Carmichael. Pete was a quality-control coach at San Diego. He agreed to come. Now he was going to be my quarterbacks coach. Pete looks just like the Dustin Hoffman character in the movie Papillon. He has the wire-rimmed glasses and same kind of smile. He was a really good baseball player at Boston College but doesn’t look athletic at all. He’s very intelligent and sharp on the computer, and he has a great work ethic. Pete was the third or fourth coach I was able to hire.

  One thing we figured out in a hurry: There weren’t a lot of experienced NFL coaches just itching to come to New Orleans. It would take a special coach to want this job. Or someone who would come for a special opportunity like a chance to move from college to the pros or for a promotion in the NFL.

  Our strength coach, Dan Dalrymple, we hired from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio. It was his first NFL job. Curtis Johnson, New Orleans native and receivers coach, came from the University of Miami for his first NFL job. Gary Gibbs, who came with me from Dallas, was now defensive coordinator, his first coordinator’s job. The line coach, Marion Hobby, I hired out of Clemson. Terry Malone, the tight ends coach, came from college too, the University of Michigan. Greg McMahon came out of East Carolina University to be assistant to special teams. Doug Marrone I had to pry out of the New York Jets, where he was an offensive line coach and would be our offensive coordinator, a nice step up.

  It’s not that these guys weren’t talented or driven or great. But they’d all come for a significant promotion or the opportunity to work in the NFL. They and their families were taking the same risk all of us were.

  Joe Vitt was the big exception. You remember the movie Cool Hand Luke? Not the Paul Newman character—Luke’s buddy, Dragline. That big, blond-haired prisoner who was talking all the time. George Kennedy played him. Won the Academy Award. The prisoners would gather around his bunk, and he’d tell stories. That’s Joe Vitt. Not from a stature point of view. Joe just has a way of making you laugh. He’d been in the NFL for twenty-seven years when he came to New Orleans. Like George Kennedy on his bunk bed, Joe would tell these stories, and all of us would listen—maybe a story about Chuck Knox, or he’d give you the history of the league in the seventies. I gave him the title of assistant head coach. Ninety percent of the time in the NFL, that just means more money or a title to keep someone happy. But if you went to the dictionary and looked up “NFL assistant head coach,” you’d see a picture of Joe Vitt. He’s from South Jersey—very, very much to the point. He can handle a lot of headaches. He was going to be a great ally to me as a first-year head coach. He was behind many of the motivational ideas that were credited to me. He was my consigliere—that’s exactly what he was. Vitt had finished the 2005 season as head coach of the St. Louis Rams after Mike Martz took ill. Joe wasn’t keeping the Rams job permanently, but he had five other offers on the table. He was one of the most respected linebacker coaches in the league. And he was just crazy enough to come. Both his children were grown, freeing him from the concerns that some younger coaches had. He had a beach house in Ocean City, Maryland, and his wife could tell him where to mail the checks. Other than the signing of Drew Brees, this was the most important acquisition we made.

  As they trickled in, all these coaches were in New Orleans without their families. Every now and then, somebody’s wife—or wife and kids—would come to visit. It was always a little strained. I got a special visit from Beth, Meghan and Connor on Valentine’s Day weekend, our first family get-together in New Orleans.

  At this point, Beth was just taking a peek to check out the area, getting a feel for things in this crazy place that was going to be our home.

  I was in a pinch. My wife was coming. It was Valentine’s Day. I knew I needed something strong. So I went to the local jeweler, Aucoin Hart on Metairie Road. They’re a terrific jeweler. We still have a fine relationship with them. I got her some glittery, expensive diamond necklace. I would have been much better off with something simple. It just reeked of a last-minute buy.

  “I got this for you,” I said, handing her the box soon after she and the kids arrived at the Airport Hilton.

  She opened it slowly, and she didn’t say anything at first.

  But I could see a pained look spreading across her face. Beth is an understanding woman and a supportive wife. God knows I’ve tested this over the years. But she could tell the necklace wasn’t thought out.

  “No,” Beth said. “No. Definitely not.” She handed the box back to me.

  The necklace was a tremendous failure. She wouldn’t take it. It was just awful. It might as well have been ten thousand dollars in cash in a brown paper bag. It was the antithesis of what I was shooting for. I told her I’d return it on Monday.

  That was how the whole visit went. Like quicksand. Every time I wiggled, I’d sink farther down. We were hanging on here, and I mean that. It was tough.

  And the kids weren’t exactly having a blast. Meghan had strep throat. I asked our medical staff to call in a prescription for antibiotics to CVS. The store on Airline Drive is about three miles from the Airport Hilton. Airline Drive
isn’t the place you’d want your family to get their impression of New Orleans. It’s the old highway to Baton Rouge. There’s nothing appealing about it at all. There are really only two or three decent buildings on that part of the road besides the Saints facility: Cox Cable, the local Budweiser headquarters, St. Martin’s School.

  I left the hotel about six p.m. to pick up Meghan’s medication. It’s about a ten-minute drive. I got to the drugstore. There was a line. About forty-five minutes later, Beth was on the cell phone.

  “What are you doing?” she asked.

  “I’m in line,” I said.

  One person behind the counter was trying to fill prescriptions. I don’t know what the problem was. But I was getting impatient. This was just a couple of months after my hiring. I could stand in a line or be anywhere publicly and not be recognized. The line was hardly moving at all.

  My wife called a second time. “What’s taking so long?” And a third time. “Sean, you’re kidding me.” Beth called a total of four times.

  When I finally got to the counter, the woman could give me only half the prescription. They’re out of it. They’re limited. They’re rationing. I don’t know what the problem was. All I knew was I was at the CVS. Beth was at the hotel with our sick child. The necklace was in its box to go back to the jeweler. We were in a city where the pharmacies didn’t function. And I’d been told no by four or five different coaches in the last couple weeks. I stood in line for that amoxicillin for two hours and ten minutes.

  “Sean, where are you bringing us?” Beth asked when I finally got back to the hotel.

  9

  SETTLING IN

  WE HAD TO PUT a calendar together for the team. It was the first calendar I’d ever done. You have to lay it all out. I thought about what Parcells did when he came to Dallas. When’s your first team meeting? When does your off-season program begin? What does the league schedule say?

  All of this gets filed with the league office back in New York.

  Periodically, players would come into the office. Some players weren’t in town, but we spoke to everybody. We told ourselves, “We’re gonna look at them all as equals. We’re gonna play the best players. We’re gonna go by what we see.” We knew we had to make some decisions in regard to free agency. We were going to lose our starting center, LeCharles Bentley. We were moving on from Aaron Brooks, the quarterback: “Call him and tell him we’re gonna waive him.” There were others we would have to waive as well.

  There was a divide in the building that was important to understand. When a coaching staff gets fired, the coach and his assistants all go away. But the marketing guy, the tickets guy, the PR guy—these people remain. They’ve seen lots of coaches come and go. There’s always a load of blame that goes out the door.

  To his credit, Mr. Benson knew there was a cavity that needed to be filled, an unhealthy vibe, a bridge that needed to be built. He had mentioned this in my initial interview. And the problem was caused by both sides, not just one. So in the same way we were evaluating the players, we were evaluating everyone—from who’s cooking the meals on up. A to Z, we were evaluating. Do they have the passion? Are they just punching the clock? Everyone came under scrutiny.

  Two months into the job, our coaching staff was pretty much complete. We were in a personnel meeting when one of the Saints executives poked his head into the room. “Coach, I just want to bring you some information on the car program here,” he said. “I’m gonna hand this packet to your coaches.”

  I looked and didn’t say anything.

  He went through the mileage restrictions, the return policy and about a hundred other rules and regulations. At some point, I stopped listening to him. It just rubbed me the wrong way. He finished and left. I closed the door and looked around the room. “Pay no attention to what he just said,” I told the coaches. I went down to see Mickey right away.

  “This is not a time for a lot of stupid technicalities,” I said. “If a guy wants to live on the Northshore, he shouldn’t have to worry about how many miles he’s putting on his car. We need to look closely at the company policy on relocation. If a coach has to be in the hotel for more than two months—well, these aren’t normal circumstances. Can you please tell our car guy, no more surprise visits?”

  We had our first full team meeting on March 15. We were going to address our off-season conditioning program. It was one of the most important meetings we were going to have, my first team meeting ever as a head coach. Before the meeting, the players were gathering in the locker room. I’ll never forget walking into that meeting and introducing the coaches. I felt like I was standing in front of the Sweathogs from Welcome Back, Kotter. Guys slouched in their chairs, looking off in all directions, making comments under their breath. The demeanor of the team was just awful. Revealing too. There was a left tackle named Wayne Gandy. Wayne was one of the leaders in the offensive line, thirty-five years old, in the late stages of his career. And he had a La-Z-Boy recliner near his locker. Pretty soon, I was asking Dan Simmons—our head equipment manager who everyone calls Chief and has been in the organization the longest, longer than Mr. Benson or anybody else—“Whose is that?”

  “It’s Wayne Gandy’s,” Chief said.

  “Do me a favor,” I told him. “Can we have that removed, and just let Wayne know he can pick it up out on the loading dock?”

  And the chair was gone.

  I was going to address everything that could have anything to do with us winning or losing, and that included more than the offensive playbook and our red-zone defense. We’d already established that Katrina was not going to be a reason that we failed. Neither was lack of discipline. That was an important lesson I took from Parcells: You have to establish law and order right from the start. So we began in the locker room.

  That was a couple days before St. Patrick’s Day. New Orleans is a very Catholic city. St. Patrick’s Day is a big deal. And we had several Irish-Catholics on the first-year coaching staff, besides me. We figured this was as good a time as any to go out and blow off some steam.

  That first year, besides his football duties, special teams coordinator John Bonamego was also our food and beverage director. John put together a St. Patrick’s itinerary for us.

  St. Patty’s Day fell on a Friday. We finished work and a limo bus picked everyone up at the Hilton. We had dinner at Chartres House Café and then walked over to Pat O’Brien’s for some hurricanes and cigars. We were definitely ready.

  Need more proof New Orleans was still struggling? It was St. Patrick’s Day, and Pat O’Brien’s was only one-third full. The city was just barely getting off the mat. We’re in Pat O’s, for Christ’s sake! In the piano bar with the dueling piano players! It’s St. Patty’s Day! And we had no trouble finding seats, sixteen of them together! We had a long table right by one of the pianos. The coaches were dropping bills in an otherwise empty tip jar. They were calling out requests for “American Pie” and their college fight songs. Nobody had any idea who these obnoxious people were.

  Part of the oddness of the room might have been because Eddie Gabriel was gone. When I visited the bar on my occasional trips to New Orleans, I was totally charmed by Eddie. They called him the Rhythm King. He was one of those never-miss-a-day-of-work kind of guys. Eddie had been at Pat O’Brien’s sixty-seven years. With a tray of coins, a set of thimbles on his fingers and an infectious personality, he could keep up with both piano players and delight the whole room.

  I asked about Eddie, of course. Charlie Bateman, the manager, told me the sad tale. Eddie left work the afternoon before Katrina. His wife was coming to get him, he said. He’d be fine. His body showed up four months later in the St. Gabriel Parish morgue. He was among those who had drowned in the flood. His absence made the empty room seem even emptier.

  We carried on as Eddie always had. We talked and laughed and shook our heads. Joe Vitt was telling stories about the Seattle Seahawks, what Chuck Knox was really like in 1981. We caught everyone up on our families back ho
me. We talked about this great adventure we were embarking on, even if it was a total question mark. We pretended not to miss the creature comforts we were missing.

  What a sight this crew was.

  A couple of the guys had on Irish Guinness caps. Terry Malone was wearing a leprechaun hat. George Henshaw was standing on a chair singing “Rocky Top” and demanding to hear the West Virginia fight song. Big Dan Dalrymple was complaining that the rubber band on his hat had just broken. What did he expect? His hat size is 7⅞. Somebody else’s head was down on the table. Dennis Allen, who had hoped to go to Tampa, had finally gotten over being hired by us. He had his little St. Patty’s Day hat on and wanted to hear the Aggie fight song from Texas A&M. A couple of the other guys were wearing Mardi Gras beads. Greg McMahon wanted to know where he could get a cigar rolled in the neighborhood. He took off around the corner and eventually missed the bus back to the hotel. He was our penguin who never made it to the next iceberg. He walked and then he got a ride and then he went to a police station and somehow eventually made it back to the hotel. But the beers kept coming. So did the hurricanes. And the night went late.

  At one point, I looked over at Joe Vitt. He didn’t crack a smile. Completely deadpan, he announced in a strong baritone: “After a long and exhaustive search, the New Orleans Saints have settled on their coaching staff.”

  10

  GETTING DREW

  WE HAD A WHIRLWIND twenty-four hours planned for Drew and Brittany Brees.

  Finding the right quarterback, Mickey and I knew, would define the next chapter in the history of the Saints. Oh, and our careers might also be at stake.

  Parcells used to say: “It’s not like you can dial 1-800-GET-A-QUARTERBACK.” Some teams had been dialing that number for ten or fifteen years, and still nobody answered. Drew was the most promising idea Mickey and I had come up with. Now we had to get him on the line.