Payton and Brees, стр. 43

14. Maxing Out

On Sunday, December 15, 2019, the indoor practice facility at the New Orleans Saints training complex was almost empty. The Saints had completed their walk-through practice in preparation for their Monday night game against the Indianapolis Colts about a half-hour earlier, and most of the players had retreated to the locker room to undress, shower, and head home. This was essentially the end of the work week. The only official team duties between now and kickoff on Monday night were a few meetings at the team hotel in downtown New Orleans later that night. But one Saint was still on the field: Drew Brees.

Dressed in his red No. 9 practice jersey, shorts, and a baseball cap, Brees stood at the 10-yard line of the south end zone and worked through the script of plays in the game plan for the Colts. He surveyed the imaginary defensive formation, then turned to his imaginary teammates and audibled to a new play with a pair of his hand signals. He then signaled to the imaginary center, took the imaginary snap, and retreated into a three-step drop. At the top of his drop, he looked left, checking off his imaginary receivers in the route progression of the play. Then, he looked right, shifting his body and feet for optimal balance, all the while pumping the imaginary ball in his right hand. Brees’ choreography was so true to form he even licked his fingers between plays, just as he does habitually during games.

For Brees, the visualization session is a vital part of his weekly routine. It’s his opportunity to play the game before the game, to reinforce the game plan and mentally steel himself for the approaching battle.

He doesn’t just simulate a successful completion. He also works through contingencies in each situation. What do I do if the defense double-teams my first option? Where’s my hot read if the linebackers blitz through the A gap? What if no one is open?

Over and over, he systematically works his way through each play on the call sheet. Each rehearsal takes between 20 and 30 minutes to complete, and Brees doesn’t stop until he’s comfortable with each play sequence. It’s a tedious, lonely process, but a critical one for Brees. The mental reps are just as important as the physical ones he takes in practice, a necessity for him to feel comfortable and confident heading into game day.

“I think when you can have a very defined starting point and ending point on every play, despite what is happening all around you, I think that helps create a calmness and a poise with you as a quarterback, which you have to have,” Brees said. “I’d say that’s very much controlling the chaos. How you determine that starting point and that ending point on every play is through preparation. When you’ve visualized everything that could happen, most importantly, when you’ve visualized the worst-case scenario—‘If they do this, what’s my answer?’—if you have all the answers, and you have all the tools, then you don’t really go in worried. You almost want them to do it. You almost want them to throw you that change-up because you’re like, ‘Man, I’ve worked so hard to put myself in a position to combat this. Let’s see it.’”

Brees honed his visualization process under Tom House, the former Major League Baseball pitcher who has built a second career as a coach, throwing specialist and sports psychologist. House, who holds a PhD in sports psychology, uses neurophysiological techniques to help athletes deal with the stress and anxiety of competition. He believes mental discipline and focus are as important to successful athletic performance as physical talent, maybe more so. House often has his clients perform drills while blindfolded or with their eyes closed to enhance their mental acuity.

“It’s being able to draw on experience that when you see this, it’s an outcome thing, when you see this, this is going to happen,” House said. “[Brees] connects dots better than anybody I’ve ever seen.”

Research has indicated mental rehearsal is helpful in various disciplines. A 2015 LSU study showed that surgeons who rehearsed their procedures beforehand performed better than those who didn’t. Astronaut Chris Hadfield said it was an essential part of his preparation for spaceflight.

Countless athletes have also employed visualization exercises over the years. One of House’s former teammates and pupils, pitcher Nolan Ryan, became a devotee of visualization during the last decade of his career. Early on the day of his starts, he would spend an hour or two going through the opponent’s batting order, breaking down the strengths and weaknesses of each hitter, and visualizing how he got them out in past meetings. It was a ritual he repeated habitually throughout his career.

Alex Honnold, the renowned mountain climber and star of the Academy Award–winning documentary Free Solo, incorporated visualization into his prep work for his historic 2017 summit of Yosemite Park’s famed El Capitan. Honnold meticulously recorded every move and technique required to scale the 3,000-foot granite face. He also mentally rehearsed contingency plans for bad weather or unexpected circumstances like falling rocks and wind gusts, the idea being, if you’ve already thought through how everything could feel, even when it goes wrong, you’re prepared if things actually do go south. Rehearsing the way certain scary moments will feel means that those moments feel “right” when they happen, instead of feeling surprising.

Brees watched Free Solo twice and was fascinated by Honnold’s preparation and mental stamina but noted one important difference between mountain climbing and football.

“The mountain is not changing, right?” Brees said. “He scripted his entire climb, but he knew where each of those cracks, crevices, and everything would be.

“There was a lot of things that you could see that