Payton and Brees, стр. 45
His week begins on Monday, which is usually a light day to review the previous game and get in some recovery work for his body. Brees grades himself on every play, as does Joe Lombardi. He gets in a workout and then calls it a day.
Tuesday is when the page turns to the next opponent. Brees awakes at 5:00 am during the season and makes the 20-minute commute from his Uptown home to the team facility. He breaks down film in the tight ends room, which is located on the first floor of the building across the hall from the main squad room. He grabs a quick breakfast and then heads back to the tight ends room to meet with the other quarterbacks for more film study at 8:30 am. He rarely leaves the facility before dark.
Wednesday begins at 6:30 am with a film-study session. He then heads to the first full squad meeting of the week at 8:30 am. Special teams and position meetings follow, then it’s off to the locker room to get dressed for practice at noon. The Wednesday practice focuses on the game plan for what is known as the base offense and defense, first- and second-down plays, with a heavy emphasis on the running game. A weight-training session follows practice; then Brees heads to the locker room, where he meets with the media for his weekly press conference with local reporters around 2:45 pm. He then visits the training room adjacent to the locker room for any maintenance work he needs on his body, grabs a bite to eat from the cafeteria, and then heads to more meetings from 4:00 to 5:00 pm, where he and the other quarterbacks review practice with Lombardi. More film study follows with the other quarterbacks before Brees finally calls it a day around 7:00 pm. He gets home around 7:30 and spends time with his kids before putting them to bed at 9:00 pm. He then retreats to the kitchen and further studies the game plan over dinner until he goes to bed.
Thursday and Friday are structured similarly, but the game plan and film study change. On Thursday, the focus is third downs, and on Friday, it’s situational work: red zone; goal line; short yardage.
The game plan is largely completed by Saturday. Brees and the quarterbacks meet to go over the script of plays for that week’s opponents. The team conducts meetings in the morning, then holds a light walk-through session on the field for 45 minutes or so and breaks for the day. Brees gets in his visualization session after the walk-through, then the team reconvenes at the facility for the charter flight out of town or at the team’s downtown hotel for home games. More meetings are held that night at the team hotel, including the “dot meeting,” where, if you recall, Payton and Brees go over the final script and Brees tells the head coach what plays he likes best for each game situation.
“As I’ve gotten older, there’s more and more hours devoted to the recovery [of my body],” Brees said. “There’s no free time. I think my free time is maybe on the plane ride to fly to an away game or when I’m coaching my kids in flag football.”
Brees’ rigid adherence to his schedule allows everyone in the building to know his location at any hour of the day in the building. Lombardi kids that he can set his watch to Brees’ routine. “If I walk in the film room on Wednesday morning at 7:00 am he’s probably going to be on the sub-blitz tape,” Lombardi said.
Chase Daniel was so impressed by Brees’ weekly regimen that he copied it and took it with him to playing stints in Kansas City, Philadelphia, and Chicago. Few other players have had the temerity to follow Brees’ lead, although backup Taysom Hill had become the closest thing to an acolyte in recent years.
“It takes discipline and mental stamina to keep doing something over and over again, day after day, year after year,” Lombardi said. “Maybe you could do it for football. I’m sure he does it for everything he does.”
Brees indeed has a routine for almost everything, from his pregame warm-up to the way he puts on his uniform. His pregame warm-up always begins with a jog around the perimeter of the playing field. He then goes through the exact same exercise and calisthenic routine at the exact same spot on the field. Game after game, it’s the same 20-minute warm-up. He never deviates.
He starts each practice the same way. After a quick warm-up, Brees goes to a specific spot on the sideline and touches his foot to it. He leaves his spot on the sideline, and waiting for him right where it is supposed to be is a water bottle left by a member of the staff. Brees picks it up and gives himself three squirts before starting practice. In the weight room, he does exactly the number of core-exercise reps to correspond to that year’s Super Bowl. During the 2018 season, he did 53 reps. In 2019, it was 54.
Newcomers to the Saints program are often caught off-guard by Brees’ habits. At first, they seem bizarre, borderline maniacal. How he wears his helmet during the daily post-practice quarterback challenge competition with teammates or climbs the pocket during non-padded, no-contact walk-through drills in practice. How he performs his stretches the exact same way every day at practice and jogs to one end of the field while everyone else is on the other end. How during his visualization sessions he barks out the cadence the exact same way he does to teammates during a game.
“When I got here, I was thinking, ‘Is this guy a robot?’” Saints receiver Keith Kirkwood joked.
Hill had the same thoughts after he joined the Saints from the Green