Payton and Brees, стр. 57
“It all goes back to his preparation and consistency in those moments,” Strief said. “On the fly, in that moment, processing that much information under all that pressure. That’s when that stuff pays off. It doesn’t pay off on the third play of the game when you’re trying to feel everything out. It pays off in the biggest moment, when your back is against the wall and you get a curve ball. That’s when all of those reps that you spent all that time on matters. Because now Drew has the mental capacity to sit there and analyze the defense and come up with an answer and a solution on his own. He doesn’t think about anything else.”
Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Doug Marrone has played and coached in the NFL for more than three decades. He said he’s never seen a synergy like the one Brees and Payton share during the two-minute drill.
“Drew and Sean are so in tune sometimes it feels like Sean’s playing quarterback through Drew, and Drew’s coaching through Sean,” said Marrone, who served as the Saints offensive coordinator from 2006 to 2008. “When those guys get out there, it’s like they have such a great relationship and feel for each other that I’m sure if Sean went out there and played quarterback, he can go through the same reads as Drew, and Drew can coach the game the same as Sean. I mean, those guys, they’re so in sync. It’s just, I hate to say it because I’m a coach, I mean, I’m a man, but it’s beautiful to watch.”
19. Driven to Compete
Mark Brunell quarterbacked the Washington Huskies to the 1991 National Championship. He played 19 seasons in the NFL, earned three Pro Bowl invitations, and won a Super Bowl ring with the Saints in 2009. But one of the proudest athletic achievements of his career had nothing to do with football. It occurred in the spring of 2008, when he defeated Drew Brees in an impromptu home run derby contest at Zephyr Field near the Saints training complex.
The competition between Brunell and Brees is still legendary around the Saints offices, not because of Brunell’s power show but because of the defiant way Brees went down in defeat. Brunell doesn’t recall exactly how many homers he hit that day off Zephrys manager Ken Oberkfell, who pitched to the group of six Saints players and coaches. All he knows is it was more than Brees, who, as a former standout baseball player in high school, surely considered himself to be the heavy favorite that day.
And Brees smashed some impressive long balls that day, including one that landed in the swimming pool beyond the right-field fence. But what stood out to Brunell and others was the effort Brees put forth to try to overtake Brunell once he established a lead. Brees extended his session well beyond the agreed-upon 50-swing limit in an attempt to outdo Brunell.
“The poor guy throwing batting practice almost needed to switch out for a reliever,” joked Pete Carmichael, who, as a former scholarship baseball player at Boston College, was part of the competition. “We got out there at 2:30 and the Zephyrs were supposed to take batting practice at 4:30, and I think they had to start BP under the stadium because we were eating into their time.”
Payton, Carmichael, and Joe Lombardi were shagging balls in the outfield and began to wonder if Brees was ever going to give up. They noticed they were starting to get sunburned as Brees continued to pound away in the batter’s box.
“At some point, there’s a law of diminishing returns on your swings, an attrition to the repetition,” Payton said. “It’s like when your golf coach tells you, ‘Enough.’ Everything from a certain point forward is going to be bad habits and blisters.”
Brees never did catch Brunell. And the short car ride back to the Saints facility was an awkwardly quiet one. “Crickets,” as Payton described it.
Payton related a story about a golf outing he, Brees, Taysom Hill, and Saints communications director Doug Miller made to City Park in the spring of 2018. One hole featured a blind drive over a hilly fairway. Each member of the foursome smashed his drive on the screws. When the group arrived at their balls on the other side of the hill, they were clustered almost on top of each other in the fairway. Much to Brees’ chagrin, his was the farthest from the green.
“He was pissed,” Payton chortled. “He didn’t realize it was a one-in-500 drive for me and a one-in-250 drive for Doug. We had each just hit the best drives of our month, but, in his mind, he was clumped in with the seniors. He told Taysom that he needed to refocus his workout in the weight room. It bothered him for two holes.
“But it’s the trait that you love about him,” Payton added. “You want him on your team. He’s extremely competitive that way, and way more often than not, he’s on the winning end of it.”
The home run derby was Brunell’s first encounter with what Lombardi jokingly calls “the dark side” of Brees. Brunell had signed a free-agent contract with the Saints only three months earlier and was just starting to get to know the man he’d back for the next two seasons. He knew Brees’ reputation as a stellar all-around athlete. He knew he was good at many things. That day at Zephyr Field, Brunell learned that losing wasn’t one of them.
“I loved every second of it,” said Brunell, who was a good enough prep baseball player in Santa Maria, California, to get drafted by the Atlanta Braves in 1993. “It was one of the favorite athletic moments of my life. If I brought it back up today, I’m sure he’d come up with some excuse because Drew is the most competitive person I’ve been around in my whole life. He wants to win in everything. I would go so far as to say he has to