Payton and Brees

by Jeff Duncan

  Strief said it’s also just another example of Brees’ extraordinary leadership skills. Other players preach the same gospel to their teammates, but Brees takes motivation to another level.

  In addition to the Finish Strong books and bracelets, he also provided copies of the motivational book 212: The Extra Degree and T-shirts with the mission statements of the speeches guest speakers Avery Johnson, Ronnie Lott, and Jon Gruden delivered to the team during training camp.

  “It’s part of him being a good leader,” Strief said. “He understands the psyche of a player. You hear a lot of coaching-isms as a player. It’s a way to transcend all the talk and create something that might hit home with someone.”

  Brees also famously leads the pregame rally chant for the team during pregame warm-ups on the field. Brees has led the chant for every game since his second season in New Orleans. Horn and Bush handled the duties in 2006 and 2007. While Brees was rehabbing his thumb injury in 2019, linebacker DeMario Davis assumed the responsibility.

  The first chant Brees performed in 2008 centered on the scene from the movie 300. Instead of Sparta, Brees riffed, “This is New Orleans!” He changed the chant in the Super Bowl season to one inspired by a cadence he picked up during an offseason U.S. Tour visit to the U.S. Marine base in Guatanamo Bay.

  When I say 1, you say 2. When I say win, you say for you…. 1! 2! Win! For you!

  When I say 3, you say 4. When I say win, you say some more…. 3! 4! Win! Some more!

  When I say 5, you say 6. When I say win, you say for kicks.... 5! 6! Win! For kicks!

  When I say 7, you say 8. When I say win, you say it’s great.... 7! 8! Win! It’s great!

  When I say 9, you say 10. When I say win, you say again.... 9! 10! Win! Again!

  Win! Again! Win! Again! Win! Again! Win! Again!

  In recent years, Brees has changed the message from game to game. It could be something derived from a movie or a song or a poem. During the 2017 playoffs, he based his chant on the sayings from his grandfather, who died earlier that year. Regardless, he always keeps them short, no more than 30 seconds. And he always delivers them with enthusiasm and emotion, at precisely 45 minutes before kickoff.

  “It’s not usually something I would do, not really even my personality,” Brees said. “Typically I’m pretty calm, composed, and chilled. I have an edge on game day, but I’m not the rah-rah type. But I had mentor [Tom House] tell me once, ‘You have to learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable.’ So, it was one of these like, all right, if nobody else will do it, I need to be the guy who does it. So I had to step out of my comfort zone a little bit because I thought it was something that was needed. I’m for whatever gets our team ready to play, play at a high level, gets us fired up.”

  The videos of Brees’ pregame chants regularly rank among the most viewed posts on the Saints website and often go viral on social media. And they’re just as popular with his teammates.

  “I get as far into the huddle as I can because it’s motivating,” wide receiver Keith Kirkwood said. “Just to finally be in that huddle with somebody who is going to go down as one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time is special. He’s the leader of the pack. It’s amazing to hear his energy and his passion. Everybody feels it.”

  22. The Near Divorce

  The wall outside the squad room in the New Orleans Saints training complex features several mounted placards displaying motivational quotes from famous people about teamwork, motivation, and bonding. One of them is a quote from automobile magnate Henry Ford: Coming together is the beginning. Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.

  The Payton-Brees marriage is a textbook example of Ford’s motto. Their partnership has been one of the most enduring in NFL history, representing one of the longest-tenured and most successful coach-quarterback tandems in the sport. Entering the 2020 season, their 200 regular season starts together were the second most ever, trailing only Bill Belichick and Tom Brady (281). In a league where the average coaching tenure lasts four years and the average playing career spans three years, what Payton and Brees have done in New Orleans is extraordinarily rare.

  And by and large, there’s been nary a hiccup between them. Unlike the sometimes-distant relationship Belichick and Brady shared in New England, the Payton-Brees partnership has remained remarkably harmonious. Payton purposely never involved himself in Brees’ contract talks with the team, yielding to Loomis on such matters when Brees signed contract extensions in 2012, 2016, and 2018. This has kept their relationship problem-free throughout the entire tenure.

  “One thing that’s served us well over all these years is the line of communication,” Payton said. “There’s a level of trust and respect there.”

  Still, there were a couple instances during the Payton-Brees run that almost led to a breakup of the prolific coach-quarterback partnership, two occasions that played out behind closed doors, unbeknownst to the public. While the Payton-Brees partnership continued to hum along in the mid-2010s, other dynamics in the Saints organization were taking place that could have led to a split of the dynamic pairing and changed the course of sports history in New Orleans and the NFL.

  It all started in 2012, when Payton was suspended for a year by the NFL for his role in the bounty scandal. Not only did the suspension cost Payton millions of dollars in salary, it also tarnished his public image. That same year, Saints owner Tom Benson purchased the New Orleans Hornets, the NBA team now known as the Pelicans. Benson hired Dell Demps as a general manager but assigned Loomis to a supervisory role as director of basketball operations. Loomis’ duties were essentially to serve as a liaison between basketball ops and ownership, but the optics of putting a “football man” atop the basketball organizational chart raised eyebrows in some NFL circles.

  The move especially did not sit well with the hyper-competitive, football-obsessed Payton. He believed Loomis’ basketball responsibilities, however minimal, put the Saints at a competitive disadvantage with their rivals in the dog-eat-dog world of the NFL. In his mind, sustained success could only be attained if everyone in the organization was committed full-time to the mission. He believed everyone in the boat needed to be rowing in the same direction, with the same intensity.

  The situation ate at Payton and became a source of friction in his relationship with Loomis. It was one of the first cracks in the once-strong foundation between the two leaders of the Saints organization. Publicly, everything seemed normal. But privately, discord brewed between the two. An incident in the spring of 2013 illustrated the dissension.

  When Loomis was forced to miss the first few days of the Saints’ organized team activities to accompany Benson and other Hornets executives on a trip to New York for the NBA Draft Lottery, Payton seethed. The practices were the first major on-field event Payton would oversee in the offseason program since his suspension. And it chafed him that his general manager would be a no-show, especially for something as inconsequential as the NBA Draft Lottery. Never one to hide his feelings even with superiors, Payton plotted a way to display his displeasure, this time in classic Dennis the Menace fashion.

  In the week before the draft lottery, Payton recruited a couple co-conspirators to execute his scheme. Coaching assistant Jason Mitchell and assistant equipment manager John Baumgartner were tasked with an odd duty: Payton wanted them to buy as many ping-pong balls as they could find in the New Orleans area. After practice, a couple members of the Saints’ equipment staff fanned out in cars and bought every ping-pong ball available from every sporting goods store in the New Orleans metropolitan area, an estimated 200 total.

  While Loomis attended the lottery festivities in New York, Payton sent his operatives to Loomis’ office and had them inundate it with ping-pong balls. They poured balls on the floor and atop his desk. They hid them in his desk drawers and filled his trash basket. There was hardly a square foot of Loomis’ second-floor corner office that
didn’t have a small plastic ball in it.

  If Loomis wasn’t aware of how Payton felt about his basketball role before he left for New York, he was fully cognizant when he returned to New Orleans and opened his office door.

  “The Pelicans took very little of my time and didn’t affect my role with the football team,” Loomis said. “I get the perspective. It just wasn’t the reality of the situation.”

  Nevertheless, Payton’s message was sent.

  “I bet I could find a ping-pong ball somewhere in his office today if looked,” Payton quipped.

  Payton and Loomis had experienced run-ins before, most notably a heated confrontation in front of staffers and team members after the Saints’ humiliating 41–36 upset loss to the Seahawks in the 2010 playoffs in Seattle. The incidents were rare but sometimes inevitable with the fiery Payton and his relentless quest for excellence. Payton’s energy was one of the main reasons Loomis hired him in 2006. Loomis knew he would need someone with Payton’s drive to overcome the unique challenges the Saints faced in post-Katrina New Orleans. But he also knew Payton’s ambition needed to be constantly managed.

  In this way, Loomis, with his steady, even-keeled personality, was the perfect yin to the high-strung Payton’s yang. Loomis didn’t know much about Payton when he hired him in 2006. A shrewd judge of people, Loomis didn’t need long to realize Payton owned natural leadership skills, a strong work ethic, and an extraordinary offensive mind. Loomis learned to skillfully balance his role as counsel, booster, and boss to his talented head coach. He astutely knew the right time to give Payton a wide berth and when to rein him in. Payton could be a handful, but Loomis knew he was worth the hassle.

  Payton was notorious around the Saints facility for obsessing over every detail of the operation. The same attention to detail that made his game plans so effective on Sundays was also directed at various aspects of the Saints’ day-to-day business operations. Payton stressed over everything from the size and color of the rally towels issued on game days at the Superdome to the size of the Christmas tree in the lobby foyer. When the Saints were winning, Payton’s obsessive-compulsive micromanagement was tolerable, a harmless quirk that caused staffers to privately roll their eyes. But as the team slogged through back-to-back losing seasons in 2014 and 2015, it could wear thin.

  “Sean has remarkable attention to detail, that obsession with the little things,” Loomis said. “He’s just concerned about every little thing that he sees. That’s part of what makes him a great coach. So if sometimes I have to put up with a screaming match from him about something that’s bothering him, then that’s okay.”

  In a league filled with big egos and publicity hounds, Loomis’ modest comportment is rare. Rather than hog the spotlight, he shuns it. A protégé of former Seattle Seahawks and Carolina Panthers president Mike McCormick, Loomis joined the Saints in 2000 as the team’s salary cap negotiator under general manager Randy Mueller. Loomis made a positive impression with the frugal Benson as a tough negotiator, not only with player agents but also with hotel managers over the team’s travel expenses. When Benson abruptly fired Mueller in 2002, it took him only a few days to promote Loomis to general manager.

  Loomis’ management style mirrored that of McCormick, who believed that the head coach and players were the faces of the franchise. The general manager’s job, in Loomis’ mind, was to support the players and coaches and take the heat when times grew tough. Loomis preferred to operate in the shadows. And his quiet, steady demeanor proved to be the perfect counterbalance to the brash, volatile Payton. While they owned decidedly different personalities, both men were self-aware enough to know they needed the other to be successful. When they had their run-ins, they usually managed to quickly find common ground and smooth things over.

  “I think we have complementary personalities and skill sets,” Loomis said of Payton. “It doesn’t mean we always agree. But we appreciate each other’s perspective and try to accommodate what the other person wants.”

  After the ugly 2014 season, both Payton and Loomis knew they needed to make major changes, starting with the defense, which had fallen to historic levels of incompetence. Several core players from the team’s successful Super Bowl era—Will Smith, Jon Vilma, Malcolm Jenkins, Roman Harper, Jabari Greer—either retired or left via free agency. The vacuum was filled with talented but unreliable players like Brandon Browner, Junior Galette, Keenan Lewis, and Kenny Vaccaro. Discipline became an issue—on and off the field.

  Payton also played a part in the defensive downfall. When he moved on from defensive coordinator Gregg Williams in the wake of the bounty scandal in 2012, he hired Steve Spagnuolo and abruptly fired him a year later without ever actually coaching a game with him. Payton then hired Rob Ryan in 2013 in a move that many longtime observers questioned from the start. Ryan, the brother of former Buffalo Bills and New York Jets head coach Rex Ryan, was respected for his defensive knowledge, but his defenses had a reputation for being undisciplined, mistake-prone units, the exact opposite of Payton’s highly synchronized offenses. Many thought the pairing of the exacting Payton and the laissez-faire Ryan was doomed from the start. Ryan installed the 3-4 defense that he and his brother had run so successfully in Baltimore and other stops around the NFL. But a year later, Payton changed plans and instructed Ryan to switch to a Seattle Seahawks–style defense built around safety Jairus Byrd, the team’s prized free agent signing in 2014, and big cornerbacks like Lewis, Brandon Browner, and Stanley Jean-Baptiste. A good soldier, Ryan did as he was told, even though he privately questioned the decision.

  Things were starting to slip elsewhere, too. While Payton remained as dedicated as ever to film study and game-planning, his attention to detail in other matters started to wane. Team meetings sometimes began late. Walk-through practices were sloppy.

  Things got so bad late in the 2014 season, veteran offensive tackle Zach Strief felt the need to meet with Payton and address some of the issues he saw undermining the team, most of which pointed directly at Payton himself. It took two weeks and multiple phone calls with his father for Strief to muster the courage to handle the face-to-face sit-down.

  “As one of the leaders of the team, I felt like I had to do it,” Strief said. “Drew is the unquestioned leader of our team, but he was so focused on what he was doing and was so close to the situation I don’t think he was aware of what was going on. There were things that used to be important to Sean that suddenly didn’t seem to matter anymore, things that he used to be concerned about that he no longer was. I told him, there were problems. We’re doing stuff that we don’t do. We don’t start meetings eight minutes late. We just don’t. We never have. It sets a bad precedent.”

  As Strief continued, Payton pulled out a notebook from his desk drawer and jotted down each item from Strief’s list. By the time they were finished 40 minutes later, the entire notepad was filled.

  “That was a difficult meeting,” Strief said. “There was one thing on the list that he said was bullshit, but everything else he agreed with. I don’t think it was anything intentional on his part, but things had just started to slip. It’s just human nature. It happens to people. But it takes a very special mentality and self-awareness for someone to sit there and accept criticism from, quite frankly, a very average player and not get upset. He didn’t reinvent himself after that meeting, but he just sort of refocused. I gained the ultimate respect for him for the way he handled it.”

  To his credit, Payton accepted responsibility for the fall-off and didn’t make excuses, even though he had plenty. At the time, he was navigating the fallout from his 2012 divorce from his wife of 20 years, Beth. As the marriage fell apart in late 2011, the family relocated to Westlake, Texas, a tony suburb in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. The news made headlines across New Orleans and did not sit well with many residents of the proud, parochial city. Payton was forced to commute on weekends to visit his children, Meghan and Conner. Payton had
the full support of Loomis and ownership, but the situation was less than ideal and eventually took its toll on him.

  “Coaching is like gardening: you’ve got to do it every day,” Payton said. “It needs that constant attention to detail. If you’re not careful things can go south quickly. Coaching can grind on you and one of the first things that goes is the attention to detail. It happens with players and coaches. At some point, they’re retired and haven’t announced it yet. It’s human nature. We all lost track of what it was that had given us a chance to be successful. I don’t know that there was a specific day that it happened, but it was ignored, starting with me.”

  The first step Payton and Loomis took to address their locker room issues was to hire Jeff Ireland as director of college scouting. Ireland was a Parcells acolyte who had been the general manager of the Miami Dolphins from 2008 to 2013. When the Chicago Bears hired Saints director of player personnel Ryan Pace, Payton pushed for Loomis to hire Ireland and replace Rick Reiprish as the head of the team’s personnel department. Ireland had a golden reputation around the league as a shrewd talent evaluator. Ireland would oversee the Saints’ drafts and was charged with finding players that fit the Saints’ profile. Payton and Loomis wanted smart, high-character, mentally tough players who were passionate about football, the kind of players who were the foundation of the club’s famed 2006 draft class and formed the core of the 2009 Super Bowl team.

  By the time Ireland was hired, most of the work had been done for the 2015 draft. But as soon as the 2015 draft ended, he immediately went to work overhauling the scouting department. He dismissed three scouts and hired four new ones. Over the next few seasons he would essentially remake the entire department, and the results showed in his draft selections. During Ireland’s first four years of overseeing the NFL Draft, the Saints selected Michael Thomas, Sheldon Rankins, Vonn Bell, David Onyemata, Marshon Lattimore, Ryan Ramczyk, Alvin Kamara, Marcus Williams, Marcus Davenport, Erik McCoy, and C.J. Gardner-Johnson, a group that would form the core of the roster in subsequent years.