Payton and Brees, стр. 32

11. Finding the Golden Nugget

History will remember the 2017 NFC divisional playoff game between the New Orleans Saints and Minnesota Vikings as the Minnesota Miracle game. Stefon Diggs’ stunning 61-yard touchdown catch on the final play of the game instantly earned a spot on the list of greatest plays in NFL history. Minnesotans will relive it for generations and tell their grandchildren where they were when Diggs split Saints defensive backs Marcus Williams and Ken Crawley and raced down the sideline for the dramatic walk-off score.

The stunning finish spoiled what should have been one of the great come-from-behind wins in Saints history. If not for the divine intervention of the gridiron gods, the game would have gone down as one of the signature moments in the Payton-Brees era of Saints football.

After all, the Saints had turned U.S. Bank Stadium on its collective head with a furious fourth-quarter rally, outscoring the Vikings 24–6 in the game’s final 17 minutes to turn a 17–0 deficit into a 24–23 lead. And they were only 25 seconds away from winning and advancing to the NFC Championship Game, one play away from becoming just the second team in NFL history to rally from a 17-point deficit in a playoff game’s final 17 minutes.

Then fate intervened, and the heroics of Sean Payton and Drew Brees were long forgotten.

The Vikings had dominated the Saints for the first three quarters. Just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong for the Saints early. Brees threw two interceptions in a game for the first time in nearly three months. Ken Crawley gift-wrapped a field goal with a pair of pass interference penalties in the second quarter. A touchdown to Ted Ginn Jr. was called back because of a penalty. The Saints failed to convert a single third down. And the normally reliable Wil Lutz missed a field goal.

By the time Brees and the Saints offense touched the ball for the first time in the second half, they trailed 17–0 and only 23 minutes remained in the game. The Saints would need to score three times against a Vikings defense that allowed the fewest yards and points in the NFL that season. The Saints’ win probability was 3 percent, and for those in attendance that day a comeback seemed even more remote.

On the first series of the second half, Brees found his rhythm. He completed 5 of 6 passes for 60 yards, the final 14 on a touchdown strike to Michael Thomas to trim the Vikings lead to 17–7 with 1:18 left in the third quarter. After spinning their wheels for two-plus quarters, the Saints finally had some momentum.

One of Payton’s strengths as a coach is his feel for a game’s pace. The quarterback in him still has an innate sense of the ebbs and flows of a football game. He constantly talks about gaining and losing control of a game as a play-caller. Payton knew this was the Saints’ chance to get back into this one. They desperately needed to capitalize on the moment. And when Marcus Williams intercepted Case Keenum on the first play of the Vikings’ ensuing drive and returned it deep into Vikings territory, Payton knew the door of opportunity had just swung wide open for the Saints.

As the Saints marched toward the Vikings goal line, he began thinking of a play he’d been waiting to call, something he discovered during the coaching staff’s week of game preparation.

While studying film of the Vikings red zone defense in his office late Thursday night, Payton came across a play the Indianapolis Colts successfully ran against the Vikings for a touchdown a year earlier. The play itself—a six-yard touchdown run by Robert Turbin—wasn’t what caught Payton’s eye. What he noticed was the void in the Vikings secondary on the back side of the play. As the Colts tight end positioned himself before the snap to make a crackback block on the Vikings left defensive end, the Vikings linebackers and free safety all immediately diagnosed the play and attacked the line of scrimmage to stop the run. Unfortunately, their execution didn’t match their play recognition, as Turbin slipped three tackle attempts by Vikings defenders and skirted into the end zone.

To Payton, the result of the play was irrelevant. What mattered was how the Vikings defense played it. And the large, undefended expanse of turf they left open in the back side of the secondary caused Payton to sit up in his seat. It was just the kind of weakness an offensive play-caller like Payton lived to attack, the Holy Grail of film study.

“I saw that,” Payton said, “and thought: That’s interesting.”

Saints tight ends coach Dan Campbell refers to this discovery process as “finding the golden nugget.” The code-breakers come in a variety of forms, but most are either personnel- or scheme-related: a cornerback’s tendency to bite on play fakes; a linebacker’s poor ball skills; a systematic flaw in a coverage scheme. This elusive cracking of the defensive code is what drives Payton and makes Saints coaches spend long, tedious hours in the office scanning videotape until their eyes glaze over the week before a game.

In the mind of the eternally confident Payton, there is always a flaw somewhere to exploit. It might take more time find it against disciplined, well-coached teams. But it’s there. And in this case, the Saints head coach was going to take advantage of one of the Vikings’ strengths: the intelligence and instinctiveness of the Minnesota defense.

Payton knew the Vikings’ defensive tendencies well. He and Minnesota coach Mike Zimmer worked together on Bill Parcells’ Cowboys staff in