Payton and Brees, стр. 30

The long hours aren’t great for the coaches’ family lives, but they know they are one of the keys to the team’s success. It’s the way Payton does business. Coaches who can’t accept it don’t last in New Orleans.

“Nobody grinds like we do—nobody,” said Campbell, who is considered one of the top head coaching prospects in the league and interviewed for head coaching positions with the Arizona Cardinals, Cleveland Browns, Green Bay Packers, and Indianapolis Colts in the 2017, ’18, and ’19 offseasons.

When Lombardi was the offensive coordinator in Detroit, he said Lions head coach Jim Caldwell wanted the entire running game plan for that week’s game completed by 8:00 am Tuesday and the passing game finished by 9:30 am. By comparison, the Saints often are not finished with the game plan for the running game until 4:00 pm on Tuesday and the passing game will often take them deep into the morning hours of Wednesday to complete.

Lombardi said he tried to institute the Saints’ method of operation during his two-year tenure in Detroit, but it didn’t take under Caldwell, who was more comfortable with a less-is-more approach. And Lombardi stresses that it’s not in any way a criticism of Caldwell’s coaching ability or process, just a different way of doing business.

“There was a totally different way of playing offense there,” Lombardi said. “In Indy, which Jim [Caldwell] was really comfortable with, one receiver would line up on the left side and the other on the right, and they had much fewer formations. I assumed the process would change a little bit [in Detroit], but it did much more than I thought, just because we had less time and less input, and there wasn’t that same culture of the game-planning we did here [in New Orleans].”

In New Orleans, Payton subcribes to a more-is-more approach, primarily because the Saints have the luxury of Brees, a quarterback capable of handling the massive mental workload. This is where the intelligence, experience, and continuity of 14 years together pay off for Brees and Payton.

The Saints often will go back through three years of an opponent’s game tape during their film preparation on game-plan days. All the opponents’ games from the current and previous seasons are reviewed. The plays are inventoried by down-and-distance situations so coaches can get an understanding of tendencies and preferred concepts.

If the opponent has a new coordinator, the staff will review tape of the coach’s previous team to see how his teams operated there. When Dan Quinn became the head coach of the Atlanta Falcons in 2015, for example, the Saints studied tape of the Seahawks’ 2013 and 2014 seasons, when Quinn served as Seattle’s defensive coordinator.

“We’ll go back two or three years if it’s relevant,” Campbell said. “And we’re going to watch that tape, and we’re going to see how he likes to play these plays versus a good tight end. What’s he going to do against an X receiver like Mike Thomas? Are they going to double over here? And we’re going to watch the game until we feel like we have every situation covered. We know exactly how they are going to play us. What does he like to do? Where are their strengths? It’s fourth-and-1, what’s he going to call? We don’t want to ever feel like we’re going to get caught with our pants down.”

Throughout the day, Brees will text his thoughts to Payton or Carmichael from what he sees during his film-study sessions. Over the years, Brees’ role in the game-planning has grown. The pre-snap check-with-me plays he makes at the line of scrimmage are his main focus. But in recent years, Brees has gone from suggesting a tweak to a route to scheming entire play concepts.

“We’ll have our phones in there and all of a sudden it will be—ding!—‘Hey, go to Kansas City and watch Play 27 against Atlanta,’” Carmichael says, describing a text from Brees on the floor below. “He usually has his thoughts on some empty [backfield] stuff. He throws all of his thoughts [on the game plan] into a text message, and sometimes he might even come upstairs and poke his head into the offensive meeting room and ask, ‘Hey, I know this guy is down this week. Who do you see the personnel playing in his place in the slot?’ He does a great job also of studying how this DB plays his technique when he’s in press [coverage]. That continues throughout the week. He looks for tendencies. He’s got such a great memory, and he keeps such great notes he probably knows the majority of [defensive] guys in the league and has a feel for them.”

Added Lombardi, “He’s excellent at saying, ‘Hey, we’ve got this guy running the route at this depth, and I think it fits better with my footwork if we can cut it down two yards or so. Or, ‘I’d rather have this receiver on this route rather than this other receiver.’ He’s excellent at giving his input. Every detail, he’s got a thought.”

And even when Brees isn’t physically present in the room, his influence is pervasive. His exacting high standards raise the bar for everyone. None of the coaches wants to be the one who gives him an incomplete answer when the game plan is introduced on Wednesday.

For example, Lombardi said the coaching staff might have a run play with a 99 percent chance of being successful in the upcoming game, but the opponent has shown one defensive look that could blow up the play for a loss. Most teams, Lombardi said, would be willing to live with those odds and keep the play in the game plan. Not the Saints. Not with Brees at quarterback. The staff will spend an extra hour trying to find a solution to the one percent.

“When you have a quarterback that is as smart as Drew is, he’s going to find that look, and he’s going to ask you about it,” Lombardi said.