Payton and Brees, стр. 60

“It’s just who I am on game day,” Payton said unapologetically. “It’s what’s natural and comfortable for me. That’s me. Pick a player or coach and they’ve heard it from me. That’s just me being fired up. Yeah, I get upset when there are 12 guys on the field. That doesn’t mean I’m looking for another defensive coach. I’m going to be more upset again. There’s going to be more [video] clips of it.”

Payton’s game-day behavior is strikingly different from his demeanor anywhere else. During the week of a game, he employs a professorial demeanor at practice and during meetings. Payton has long compared coaching to teaching. In his mind, great coaches are inherently great communicators and instructors. With that in mind, he rarely raises his voice at practice and spends much of his time calmly instructing players on individual techniques and responsibilities. But on game days a transformation occurs: Professor Payton becomes Sunday Sean, a gum-chomping, sideline-pacing, hell-raising, football-coaching firebrand. Payton’s animated sideline antics have become infamous around the league and legendary among his own players and coaches. They refer to Payton’s game-day alter ego as Sunday Sean and Game-Day Sean. In fact, his sideline demeanor is so notorious it has become part of the informal orientation that veteran players give to newcomers and rookies when they join the club.

“Sean’s definitely a different guy on Sundays,” defensive tackle Sheldon Rankins said. “On Sunday, he’s got his Juicy Fruit, and he’s locked in.”

Payton’s sideline attacks are nondiscriminatory. Errors of omission and errors of commission from his players are equally egregious in his mind. Drop a ball. Jump offside. Fail to account for the opponent’s best player in pass protection. Whatever. A failure to execute mentally or physically is going to earn a sideline rebuke from Payton. When the game is on the line, any person in his way will face his fire. Players say they see his pursed-lipped, steely-eyed glare in their sleep.

“If things don’t go right on the field, you’re going to hear about it, you’re going to feel his eyeballs piercing through you,” former Saints offensive lineman Jermon Bushrod said. “You can feel him coming after you.”

Like Pavlov’s dogs, Saints players have been conditioned over the years to avoid Payton on the sideline after committing a mental error or mistake during a game. They’ll take serpentine paths to the sideline to skirt him and almost always avoid eye contact with him when they reach the bench.

“I’ve seen [former star receiver Marques] Colston run almost around to the visitor’s bench to get back to our sideline to avoid Sean,” Saints wide receivers coach Curtis Johnson said of the former star receiver.

But Payton has wisened to these tactics. He might have to wait until after completing a series as the offensive play-caller, but he eventually finds time to get his point across and air his grievance. And, players say, he never forgets a transgression.

“Oh, he’s coming,” veteran receiver Ted Ginn Jr. said. “You might dodge him that first time, but he’s going to catch you again. It’s not like you’re not going to hear it.”

Former tackle Jon Stinchcomb remembers being assessed a holding penalty during a game against Tampa Bay and feeling Payton’s wrath from the sideline.

“You could see the glare on his face from midfield,” Stinchcomb said. “He chewed me and up down when I got to the sideline. You just have to go and eat it. There’s no getting around it.”

Strief recalled Payton stomping up to him after he gave up a particularly bad hit against an opponent one year.

“He came to the sideline and asked me, ‘Is this too big for you? As in, is playing in the NFL [too big for you]?” Strief said. “If you’ve been here long enough, it’s happened to all of us.”

Terron Armstead remembered a mistake he made during his rookie season, just months removed from a stellar career at Arkansas–Pine Bluff. Payton tore into Armstead before he could reach the sideline.

“I’d never had anyone talk to me like that before in my life,” Armstead said. “I was wondering what I got myself into.”

Taysom Hill said Payton once jumped him during a game for failing to make the proper decision on a read-option run. He kept the ball instead of handing it off to Kamara, and Payton let him know about it on the sideline. Later in the game, Payton sent in another read-option run to Hill and reminded him in the headset “to just give it” to Kamara. But when Hill took the snap, the correct read was to keep the ball and he did, scoring a touchdown on the run.

“He told the coaches in the headset, ‘Taysom’s got guts,’” Hill said. “Or something a little more colorful than that.”

Payton’s theatrics aren’t limited to his own team. He used to regularly exchange trash talk with former Carolina Panthers receiver Steve Smith during the team’s biannual NFC South battles. In the 2017 season, Payton yelled demonstratively across the field at Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Dirk Koetter during a game at the Superdome after Bucs quarterback Jameis Winston instigated a fight between Mike Evans and Marshon Lattimore. A few weeks later, Payton brandished the choke sign at Devonta Freeman after a carry by the Falcons running back, a gesture that earned Payton a $10,000 fine from the league. Payton also prematurely trolled Vikings fans by performing the Skol clap on the sidelines during the final minutes of the Saints’ 2018 NFC divisional playoff game at U.S. Bank Stadium.

This fiery behavior is a distinguishing characteristic of Payton’s coaching. Many of the NFL’s great offensive minds have been stoic, cerebral men, and they coached that way. Tom Landry. Joe Gibbs. Mike Holmgren. Andy Reid. You’d never see one of them going after a player or coach on the sidelines.

“It’s kind of a running joke as to the ‘Game-Day Sean’ demeanor,” Brees said. “He can be so calm, cool, composed at practice, in the meeting room,