Payton and Brees, стр. 18
In a league where the average playing career lasts 3.5 years, Brees and Payton have operated and produced at an elite level for nearly a decade and a half. While other teams cycle through head coaches and quarterbacks every few seasons, the Saints have enjoyed the same quarterback-coach battery for 14 years and counting. Add in Carmichael, who’s been with the duo the entire time, and mainstays Lombardi and receivers coach Curtis Johnson, and you have the most stable situation of any offense in the league. No other team comes close to matching that level of continuity.
“They’re joined at the hip,” Saints tight ends coach Dan Campbell said. “They’ve been together so long they know how each other thinks. There is a trust issue. Coach has a ton of trust in Drew. He knows Drew thinks the exact same way he does. He understands the situations of the game. That’s why there’s been this rapport between these two and this great working relationship. They’re unique human beings. He’s a phenomenal coach, and he’s a phenomenal player. They’re the best at what they do. And you just don’t find those guys every day. They come around every 20 years maybe. To have both of those guys here at the same time is phenomenal.”
Payton and Brees are alike in many ways, but the one overriding personality trait they share is confidence. Each has an unshakeable confidence in himself. Regardless of how dire the situation, they both believe they can overcome the odds.
Former Saints linebacker Scott Fujita once called Brees “annoyingly optimistic.” Payton, too, is often at his best in times of crisis. When the Saints are mired in a losing streak, he turns into the team’s biggest optimist. He thrives on chaos, and his steely-eyed confidence trickles down to his players and fellow coaches during adverse times.
“There could be a news report that says there’s a meteor that’s coming for the Saints facility that’s going to knock out a 10-mile-wide radius, and everyone in the area is going to be dead, and he would be like, ‘This is perfect. This is just what we want,’” Lombardi joked. “He’s got a way, regardless of how tough things are going, to remain upbeat.”
This confidence manifests itself on game days. Payton and Brees’ aggressive mindsets feed off each other. Both are willing to take calculated risks. Their tenure together has been highlighted by countless instances of bold decision-making.
With the Saints trailing Miami 24–3 in their Week 7 game in 2009, Brees convinced Payton to go for the touchdown on fourth-and-goal at the 1-yard line with five seconds left in the second quarter. Brees’ sneak for a touchdown helped fuel an epic 46–34 comeback victory.
Payton’s famous “Ambush” onside kick call to start the second half of Super Bowl XLIV will be remembered as one of the great play calls in Super Bowl history.
This aggressive mindset doesn’t always work out. In the final minutes of the 2018 NFC Championship Game, with the Saints driving for the go-ahead score inside the Rams’ red zone, Payton famously told Brees on the sideline that he did not want to settle for a field goal, eschewing conventional wisdom and going for a touchdown instead.
“I don’t want to take 55 seconds off the clock and just kick a field goal,” Payton said during a timeout at the two-minute warning, with the score tied at 20. “We’re going to be smart, but we’re going to try to score a touchdown.”
Brees enthusiastically agreed. “Yeah, absolutely!” he said. “Absolutely!”
But Brees’ uncharacteristic misfire on a routine slant pass to Michael Thomas stopped the clock and allowed the Rams to save a timeout they would later use to help set up a game-tying field goal in a game the Rams eventually won in overtime.
The loss in the 2019 NFC Championship Game was one of the most heartbreaking setbacks of the Payton-Brees era, but the aggressive mindset Payton and Brees displayed down the stretch is what has propelled the duo to such great heights in their careers. More often than not, their aggressiveness is rewarded.
“They are both kind of gunslingers,” Strief said. “They’re both so aggressive in the way that they see how to attack a defense. And so because of that there is no conservative sounding board off of them. You see them stand on the sidelines during a game and talk, and it takes a lot for one of them to be like, ‘No, we better not go for it.’ That’s both of their mentalities. A lot of the stuff that they want to do makes sense to each other because they’re both highly aggressive and both highly confident that that aggression will pay off and not come at a price.”
Another similarity: both thrive under pressure. The more intense the moment, the better Payton and Brees perform. Both embrace the spotlight. Neither wilts in the moment.
“They both are extremely bright and [have] extremely strong work ethics,” Joe Brady said. “But at the end of the day, they are two competitive guys, and I think that that is what makes them dynamic. When it’s game day and the lights are shining, that’s when Sean Payton and Drew Brees are at their best.”
As alike as they are on the field, Payton and Brees would be the first to tell you they own different personalities and lifestyles off it.
Friends describe Brees as quiet, conservative, and reserved away from the Saints facility. While he can be just as driven and focused in his business and community interests, his laid-back Texas personality is more prevalent away from the football field. He spends most of his free time with his family: wife Brittany and the couple’s four children, daughter Rylen and sons Baylen, Bowen, and Callen. A big night out for Brees is a visit to the local trampoline park with the kids.
A devout Christian, Brees was raised in a Protestant church and professes to live by two fundamental