Payton and Brees, стр. 1

This book is dedicated to Saints fans and the people of the great city of New Orleans, who deserve leaders like Drew Brees and Sean Payton.

Contents

Foreword by Steve Gleason

Prologue

1. Finding the Pilot

2. Aligning in New Orleans

3. Destined to Be a Saint

4. The Parcells Effect

5. Child of Destiny

6. Alike Yet Different

7. The Sean Payton Offense

8. The Winchester Mystery House

9. Blitzing the Defense

10. The Grind: Putting Together the Plan

11. Finding the Golden Nugget

12. Calling the Shots

13. The Supercomputer

14. Maxing Out

15. Fighting the Stereotype

16. Trust and Confidence

17. “Who Throws That Ball?”

18. Two Minutes to Paradise

19. Driven to Compete

20. The Fire and Fury of Sunday Sean

21. Don’t Eat the Cheese

22. The Near Divorce

23. The Saint Patrick’s Day That Almost Was

24. In NOLA to Stay

25. 40 Is the New 30

26. A Tree Grows in Baton Rouge

27. The Payton-Brees Legacy

Acknowledgments

Photo Gallery

Foreword by Steve Gleason

I met Sean Payton and Drew Brees 14 years ago, in 2006. At the time, the Saints and the city of New Orleans were just in the initial stages following the agonizing destruction of Hurricane Katrina. I played on the team for the previous six seasons and had fallen in love with the unique culture of this community—not to mention a daughter of the community I found uniquely loveable. While I was confident the people of New Orleans would recover resiliently, I was not so sure about the Saints organization. I had more pressing personal concerns. The family of my future wife, Michel Varisco, had their home completely destroyed. Even more personally, when Coach Payton first set eyes on me in the Saints cafeteria, he assumed I was just a long-haired team equipment manager.

Along with Michel’s family and the city of New Orleans, I was working to find a return to success after a really difficult year following Hurricane Katrina. Ultimately, Drew Brees and Sean Payton would be the catalysts of that return—our collective rebirth.

From a personal perspective 14 years later, I consider Coach Payton and Drew Brees my brothers. Yeah, I convinced Payton that I was more than an equipment manager during 2006 training camp. But three years after I retired from the NFL, I was diagnosed with ALS, a hurricane of a disease. Painful and agonizing. Brees and Payton have been immensely supportive of me both publicly and privately. I am so grateful for their friendship. I love them.

At some point during the Saints team and organization’s transition, the phrase “We will walk together forever” emerged. I have remained in New Orleans and I am raising a family with Michel. Coaches and players have come and gone, as we all do, but for the past 14 years, I have gotten to see Drew and Coach at the facility, or the Dome, or Mardi Gras, or a fundraiser, or even at the house. Both of these guys ushered in a change of plans, a change of mind-set, and a change of heart, not only with the Saints organization, but the entire New Orleans region. In a completely unprecedented way, since the 2006 season, the people of this city, region, and state can all proudly say, “We will walk together forever.”

I played all eight years of my NFL career with the New Orleans Saints. I made the team after a free-agent tryout midway through the 2000 season. It was your standard workout: 40-yard dash, bench press, standing long jump, agility drills. Afterward, the scouts took me and the other tryout players for a meal before our flights back home. I was surprised at their choice of dining establishment: a grungy restaurant with bars on the windows in a neglected neighborhood that served cold fried chicken from a buffet. To say the least, it was not the kind of experience a first-class organization would project. It was a little thing. But it said a lot. I got a call a week later to join the team, and two weeks after that I was on the field with the Saints playing against John Elway and the Denver Broncos.

Payton and Brees joined the team six years later in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Before they arrived in town, the Saints teams I played on were talented but inconsistent. On any given Sunday, we could beat the best team in the league or lose to the worst. My rookie year, maybe 10 weeks after eating a buffet lunch behind barred windows, we won our first playoff game in franchise history. But we lacked the discipline and consistency necessary to be great.

When Coach Payton took over the team in 2006, he knew he needed to change things in the organization. He knew the perception and results would not change until the culture did.

First, he had to determine what kind of culture the organization had enabled and fostered for the previous 38 years. This required him to create a sense of urgency, not only among the players, but also the existing Saints staff, management, and ownership. In an organization that seemed pretty content with mediocrity, this was a monumentally enormous task from my perspective.

I think Coach Payton knew that this would require bold action early in his tenure. For existing staff and front-office personnel, Payton ensured he and his coaches were treated in first-class fashion. He pushed for his staff members to have more favorable car lease agreements and disallowed business operations staffers to enter and interrupt coaches’ meetings. Coach Payton wanted his coaches to be treated like company executives.

For the players, Coach Payton wanted to push the level of urgency. To set the tone, he hung signs around the training facility. The first sign I saw read: Saints Players Will Be Smart, Tough, Disciplined, and Well-Conditioned. It made me laugh. In an industry where players are coveted for their size, speed, and strength, I had doubts that this message was sincere. Messages like this became the theme. The coaches and management were continuously thinking about what these signs should say, underscoring their importance. They regularly changed and replaced them, sending the message that these principles were not