Payton and Brees

by Jeff Duncan

  Brees returned to Birmingham on Sunday afternoon and flew to Miami that night for his official visit with the Dolphins. Miami had gone 9–7 in Saban’s first season and team officials there believed they were a quarterback away from contending for a Super Bowl. Brees was their top target. The Dolphins had graded Brees highly as a prospect in the 2001 NFL Draft, and several of the team’s scouts and personnel executives remained high on him behind closed doors. Miami signaled its interest by having Saban call Brees at the stroke of midnight to start free agency. Saban and Dolphins general manager Randy Mueller even flew to Birmingham to meet briefly with Brees on Saturday morning before he left for New Orleans.

  The Dolphins wined and dined Brees, too. They flew him and Brittany to Miami on a private jet and put them up at the Harbor Beach Resort and Spa and threw a big waterfront dinner for them at Grille 66 & Bar in Fort Lauderdale. While Brees was getting his physical and visiting with Dolphins coaches, Saban’s wife, Terry, was taking Brittany on a boat cruise up the intracoastal waterway.

  The Dolphins medical staff, though, was less enthusiastic. After evaluating Brees’ shoulder, Miami doctors said it was a long shot Brees would fully recover from the surgery. And even then, it would probably take a year for him to return to 100 percent.

  “It was more than a gut punch,” former Dolphins general manager Randy Mueller said. “It was a kick below the gut if you know what I mean.”

  As a backup plan, Miami entered into trade negotiations with the Minnesota Vikings for quarterback Daunte Culpepper, who faced a similar career crossroads as Brees after suffering a severe knee injury the previous season. Andrews also performed Culpepper’s surgery, and Culpepper was told he would make a complete recovery and be ready to play football for the 2006 season. Believing they were close to making a Super Bowl run, the Dolphins pitched their tent with Culpepper.

  Faced with a major rebuilding job, Payton and Loomis were in position to roll the dice. As a first-year coach, Payton owned a long leash with fans after the grim 2005 season. The Saints weren’t pressured to make a playoff run like Miami. They could afford to take a chance on Brees.

  “In our mind, even if it doesn’t work out in Year One, then we’re just waiting for two years,” Loomis said. “If it didn’t work out this year, hey, look, this guy’s got another opportunity in Year Two.”

  The Saints offered Brees a six-year, $60 million contract, the largest in franchise history. While the offer was a tangible commitment by the team, it also included an escape clause after Year One in case things didn’t pan out. Brees would earn $10 million in the first year and was due a $12 million roster bonus on March 2, 2007. If Brees struggled or was reinjured, the Saints could cut him and the only cost would be a relatively minor $6.67 million hit against their salary cap in 2007.

  When Brees accepted the offer a day later, Saints fans were excited but far from over the moon. They had experienced their share of bad free-agent signings over the years. Saints fans were used to broken-down quarterbacks parachuting into New Orleans on the back ends of their careers. They were hopeful Brees would be the exception, but many of them remained skeptical.

  At his introductory press conference in New Orleans a few days later, Brees tried to assuage fears and quell the skepticism about his injured shoulder.

  “I don’t mind talking about it,” Brees said to a packed room of reporters. “I’ve got a big smile on the inside because I know where I’m going to be in about four months. So all this speculation, especially during this process where people just like to kind of drag you down…they’ll be eating their words. It’s not the first time somebody said I couldn’t do it.”

  Payton loved every word of Brees’ speech. The Saints had their pilot. It was the first win of Payton’s tenure. No one could have known it then, but it was a positive early sign of the young head coach’s talent, a testament to his intelligence, instincts, and competitiveness. The little-known Payton had gone head-to-head with the great Nick Saban and won.

  2. Aligning in New Orleans

  New Orleans was a new experience for Sean Payton and Drew Brees both. Neither had any connection to the city before joining forces there in 2006.

  Even though he was born and raised in Austin, Texas, just a short plane ride away, Brees had been to New Orleans just once, for the wedding of his college roommate, Jason Loerzel, in 2003.

  That same year Payton coached in the Superdome as an assistant with the Cowboys. The 13–7 loss was a day he would just as soon forget. The only other visit Payton had made to New Orleans was for a coaching convention during his days as a young college assistant. One of the few things he remembered from that trip was going home “with a lot of ATM receipts in my pocket and not a lot of sleep.”

  New Orleans is the United States’ most unique city. Geographically, it is located in the Deep South. But the city’s ethos is firmly rooted in Europe and the Caribbean because of its rich immigrant history. In nearly every way, culturally, spiritually, and philosophically, New Orleans is much closer to Toulouse, France, than Talladega, Alabama. But in one aspect, New Orleans is very much a Southern city: its people are religious about football.

  A unique American city like New Orleans needs a unique football team, and the Saints certainly fit the bill. Everything about the Saints is distinctive. Their black-and-gold color scheme, a tribute to founding owner John Mecom Jr.’s oil business interests (black gold, Texas tea), is unique in professional sports. Their nickname, derived from New Orleans jazz great Louis Armstrong’s song “When the Saints Go Marching In,” is also distinctive, a nod to the city’s deep Catholic roots. And their fleur-de-lis logo is also the city of New Orleans’ symbol.

  Located on a sliver of sinking, mosquito-infested silt in the middle of a swamp, New Orleans’ very existence grows more precarious by the day. Coastal erosion claims a football field of Louisiana land to the Gulf of Mexico each day. To cope with this inconvenient truth, New Orleanians lean on certain customs: Mardi Gras, Jazz Fest, drive-thru daiquiri shops—and the Saints.

  Few teams have such intrinsic ties to their hometown, both spiritually and aesthetically. The relationship between the city and team extends beyond the normal team/community dynamic.

  For the team’s fans, affectionately known as Who Dats after the colloquial chant “Who Dat Say Dey Gonna Beat Dem Saints,” Saints games are more than mere athletic contests. They are communal events, three-hour revivals where all races, religions, and creeds of the citizenry converge, rally, and unite. New Orleanians attend games dressed in costume and Carnival regalia. They name their children after Saints players and regularly meet the team at the airport after its return flights from big road wins.

  If something bad happens to a Saints player, the city rallies to the cause. When linebacker Steve Stonebreaker was fined $1,000 for starting a fight in a game against the New York Giants in 1967, a group of fans collected money to pay the fine. When Marcus Williams missed the tackle at the end of the 2017 NFC divisional playoff game, a local couple bought a billboard downtown with the message: Dat’s OK Marcus, We [big pink heart] our Saints.

  And this love affair has existed since the franchise’s inception in 1966.

  Unfortunately, the on-field product wasn’t as impressive as the off-field support during the club’s early years.

  It took the Saints two decades to record their first winning season and another 13 years after that to win their first playoff game. Owner Tom Benson had raised the standards of the club when he bought the team in 1985 and hired general manager Jim Finks and head coach Jim Mora. But the Saints still were considered one of the league’s also-rans. Before Payton arrived, they had registered only seven winning seasons and a record of 244–361–5 in 39 years. Of Payton’s 13 predecessors, only Mora managed to post a winning record in New Orleans.

  Before Payton left his position as Dallas Cowboys offensive coordinator to take the Saints gig, his mentor, Bill Parce
lls, offered him some final advice: “It was, ‘Hey, real quickly, you’ve got to figure out what has kept that organization from winning and make those changes,” Payton said. “Otherwise, they’ll be having another press conference three years from now to introduce another someone in a navy blazer at the podium.”

  Payton said Parcells compared him and his rookie coaching brethren to penguins jumping off an iceberg into the dangerous Arctic waters.

  “There’s nine of you in that class,” Payton recalled Parcells’ message to him. “Everyone is swimming for the iceberg and the truth of the matter is maybe two or three of you will get to that other iceberg and climb up [and] the rest are eaten. Because typically those [coaching] changes are going on at those places that haven’t experienced success.”

  While Payton respected Parcells and other Super Bowl–winning mentors like Jon Gruden and Mike Ditka, he also knew nothing they said could truly prepare him for the challenge he faced in New Orleans.

  When Payton took over the Saints in January 2006, New Orleans was only five months removed from Hurricane Katrina’s devastation and still in the early stages of the massive recovery. In the wake of one of the worst natural disasters in American history, the long-term future of the Saints was uncertain, as were New Orleans’ prospects as a regular host site for Super Bowls, Final Fours, and college football championship games.

  Even before Katrina, New Orleans already was one of the smallest and poorest markets to boast two professional sports franchises. Its metropolitan population of 1.3 million was the fifth smallest in the NFL. Its corporate base ranked ahead of only Buffalo. Saints season-ticket sales had dipped to about 35,000 before Katrina, down more than 33 percent from a franchise record of more than 53,000 in 2003. And it didn’t help matters that the 2005 team finished 3–13, the club’s worst record since Coach Mike Ditka’s swan song in 1999.

  This was the bleak situation that confronted Payton early in his tenure. During his first month on the job while holed up at the Airport Hilton Hotel on Airline Drive, a few miles down the road from Saints headquarters in suburban Kenner, Payton noticed the looks on the faces of assistant coaches he brought in for interviews. The hotel was surrounded by FEMA trailers, blue roofs, and construction equipment. The area’s quality of life was not exactly a selling point to the spouses of potential coaching candidates.

  “Everyone else was going out [of New Orleans],” Payton said, “and we were going in.”

  At his introductory press conference, Payton vowed to start “with a clean slate.” Not only did the entire football operation need an overhaul, but the business side of the building also needed to be changed. The Superdome, meanwhile, was in the initial stages of a multi-phase $320 million renovation. For all intents and purposes, the Saints team that Payton and Brees took over in 2006 was a start-up operation.

  “Let’s be honest, we’re in New Orleans, and it’d been under water [several] months earlier, and you drive through the city and you’re seeing boats on top of houses and all these things,” Loomis said. “You don’t have all the services, the schools are closed, all those different things that happened.”

  The rebuilding task was daunting, but Payton remained unfazed. A year earlier he almost accepted the head coaching job with the Oakland Raiders but backed out at the last minute and returned to Dallas. Then he was the runner-up to Mike McCarthy for the Green Bay Packers head coaching job before settling on the Saints job. The Saints were his first head coaching job at any level of football, and he was excited about the possibilities.

  “There were a lot of challenges,” Payton said. “But we also knew there was a great opportunity here.”

  Payton knew he had to change the culture, and he set the tone early. Eleven starters from the 2005 season were shipped out, including popular wide receiver Donte Stallworth, a former first-round draft pick. Twenty-six new players made up the initial 53-man roster. He built the roster with average Joes who possessed high character, a strong work ethic, and a team-first attitude. He stressed teamwork over individual accomplishment. One of the first things he did as coach was show the players tape of the 2004 U.S. Olympic men’s basketball team, which finished a disappointing third in the Athens Games despite a lineup that featured LeBron James, Allen Iverson, Tim Duncan, and Dwyane Wade.

  “You have to look at why [the Saints] have only won one playoff game in 40 years,” Payton said. “There’s a reason. We’re in a place where, within 10 minutes, you can get a daiquiri, sit at a blackjack table, and go to a strip club—and you can do it until four in the morning. If you’ve got the kind of people who are susceptible to that, they’ll find trouble. So, yeah, character’s important. New England showed us the model the past years.”

  Payton also made subtle changes. If a meeting was at 8:30 am in 2005, it began at 8:00 am during Year One. Instead of wearing black jerseys at home, the Saints wore white.

  “Change is healthy,” Payton said. “I felt the situation in New Orleans was right and I was ready for it. None of these jobs is perfect. Every one has strengths and weakness and challenges. You look at it and know it’s going to present challenges. I flew back after the initial interview with Mickey and thought, ‘This is a real good challenge.’ Part of that is what’s happening in the city. I think we can be part of that process and get the arrow pointing up in that area and for the people there.”

  The signing of Brees was the catalyst. The Saints hadn’t had a Pro Bowl quarterback since Manning in 1979. And they hadn’t had a great offensive-minded head coach since Hank Stram in the mid-1970s. The Saints’ previous head coaches were all defensive-minded tough guys: Mora; Mike Ditka; Jim Haslett.

  Payton and Brees ushered in a new era of hope and possibility to New Orleans, arriving at a time when the city and franchise desperately needed strong, competent leadership.

  It easily could have turned out differently. Payton could have landed in Green Bay. Brees could have signed with Miami. Yet, fate brought them together in New Orleans. And back in 2006, Saints fans, desperate for a return to respectability and competitiveness, turned their lonely eyes to a first-time head coach and a quarterback with a surgically repaired throwing arm.

  “You go back to that time when a lot of us came here six months post-Katrina,” Brees said in 2019, recalling those early days in New Orleans. “All of us leaning on one another. You know, this was this is a new environment for Sean. It was a new situation, first-time head coach. Man, he had his hands full trying to put together a staff and a team to try to put together a winner to give the people of New Orleans and this community something to cheer about. I think he drew the connection very quickly. He helped to create that bond. He had to create the culture here that fits the mold of this city and the Who Dat Nation. So I think he’s always embraced that. So that’s one of the big reasons why there’s such a connection between the two.”

  3. Destined to Be a Saint

  History will show that Payton ended up in New Orleans after the Green Bay Packers chose Mike McCarthy instead of him during their coaching search in 2006. But fate might have played a role, as well.

  On December 29, 1963, Thomas and Jeanne Payton welcomed their third-born child into the world in San Mateo, California, christening him Patrick Sean Payton.

  A devout Irish Catholic family, the Paytons named the boy after the Rev. Patrick Peyton, an Irish-born American priest who had traveled the globe after World War II and the Korean War on what became known as “The Rosary Crusade,” imploring people to pray the rosary and coining the phrase, “The family that prays together stays together.”

  Payton’s parents were from Scranton, Pennsylvania, and he spent his grade school years in Newtown Square, a bedroom community 30 miles west of Philadelphia. Payton would play sandlot ball with his older brother, Thomas, and his friends before the family moved to Naperville, just outside of Chicago, when he was in his early teens.

  “I can remember that Sean alw
ays hung out with kids three to five years older than him,” Thomas said. “They’d let him do stuff, watch them play football, touch or tackle. Kids his age would come over after school and ask my mom if Sean could come out and play. My mom [who died in 2002] wouldn’t let my brother stay up late unless he took a nap. So the only way he could watch Monday Night Football—and we’re talking about fifth or sixth grade here—is if he took a nap. Everybody else would be outside playing after school. He’d be taking a nap so he could watch Monday Night Football and talk about it with the older kids the next day.”

  From early on, Payton knew exactly what he wanted to do in life. He might not have been the most disciplined student at Naperville Central High School, but he had a clear sense of purpose in life. Don Zedrow, his eighth-grade teacher at Lincoln Junior High School, remembers telling the young, cocky Payton in shop class that if he didn’t stop goofing around, he’d never amount to anything.

  “I kid you not, he looked at me and said, ‘Mr. Zedrow, I’m going to be a professional football player,’” Zedrow told the Chicago Tribune in 2007. “I said, ‘Yeah, I’ve heard that one before.’”

  Payton derived his early sense of direction from J.R. Bishop, his high school coach at Naperville Central High School, where Payton was a star quarterback. Bishop arrived at Naperville Central during Payton’s sophomore year to reverse the football fortunes of the public high school in the Chicago suburb that had not experienced much success.

  Bishop was an early mentor for Payton. He was the head coach at Wheaton (Illinois) College from 1982 to 1995, where he compiled a stellar 84–43–1 record. In semi-retirement, he served another decade as offensive coordinator and was inducted into the school’s athletic hall of fame in 2004.

  “He was a father figure to me and was very important in my development,” Payton said. “I think that with myself, and a lot of other players, he probably stimulated our interest. When I got to high school, I think I was just aspiring to fit in. I always enjoyed sports, played basketball, football, baseball. I think the thing he did was he had a way of making sure you knew if you wanted to play football past high school, there probably was a college for everybody. He used to say that. I think six or seven guys went on to play college football, some major college, some Division III level. I think some of [my interest] was stimulated by him; the interest on still wanting to play when you went to college. He had a big impact on my life early on, as well as my parents.”