Payton and Brees, стр. 65
“One thing that’s served us well over all these years is the line of communication,” Payton said. “There’s a level of trust and respect there.”
Still, there were a couple instances during the Payton-Brees run that almost led to a breakup of the prolific coach-quarterback partnership, two occasions that played out behind closed doors, unbeknownst to the public. While the Payton-Brees partnership continued to hum along in the mid-2010s, other dynamics in the Saints organization were taking place that could have led to a split of the dynamic pairing and changed the course of sports history in New Orleans and the NFL.
It all started in 2012, when Payton was suspended for a year by the NFL for his role in the bounty scandal. Not only did the suspension cost Payton millions of dollars in salary, it also tarnished his public image. That same year, Saints owner Tom Benson purchased the New Orleans Hornets, the NBA team now known as the Pelicans. Benson hired Dell Demps as a general manager but assigned Loomis to a supervisory role as director of basketball operations. Loomis’ duties were essentially to serve as a liaison between basketball ops and ownership, but the optics of putting a “football man” atop the basketball organizational chart raised eyebrows in some NFL circles.
The move especially did not sit well with the hyper-competitive, football-obsessed Payton. He believed Loomis’ basketball responsibilities, however minimal, put the Saints at a competitive disadvantage with their rivals in the dog-eat-dog world of the NFL. In his mind, sustained success could only be attained if everyone in the organization was committed full-time to the mission. He believed everyone in the boat needed to be rowing in the same direction, with the same intensity.
The situation ate at Payton and became a source of friction in his relationship with Loomis. It was one of the first cracks in the once-strong foundation between the two leaders of the Saints organization. Publicly, everything seemed normal. But privately, discord brewed between the two. An incident in the spring of 2013 illustrated the dissension.
When Loomis was forced to miss the first few days of the Saints’ organized team activities to accompany Benson and other Hornets executives on a trip to New York for the NBA Draft Lottery, Payton seethed. The practices were the first major on-field event Payton would oversee in the offseason program since his suspension. And it chafed him that his general manager would be a no-show, especially for something as inconsequential as the NBA Draft Lottery. Never one to hide his feelings even with superiors, Payton plotted a way to display his displeasure, this time in classic Dennis the Menace fashion.
In the week before the draft lottery, Payton recruited a couple co-conspirators to execute his scheme. Coaching assistant Jason Mitchell and assistant equipment manager John Baumgartner were tasked with an odd duty: Payton wanted them to buy as many ping-pong balls as they could find in the New Orleans area. After practice, a couple members of the Saints’ equipment staff fanned out in cars and bought every ping-pong ball available from every sporting goods store in the New Orleans metropolitan area, an estimated 200 total.
While Loomis attended the lottery festivities in New York, Payton sent his operatives to Loomis’ office and had them inundate it with ping-pong balls. They poured balls on the floor and atop his desk. They hid them in his desk drawers and filled his trash basket. There was hardly a square foot of Loomis’ second-floor corner office that didn’t have a small plastic ball in it.
If Loomis wasn’t aware of how Payton felt about his basketball role before he left for New York, he was fully cognizant when he returned to New Orleans and opened his office door.
“The Pelicans took very little of my time and didn’t affect my role with the football team,” Loomis said. “I get the perspective. It just wasn’t the reality of the situation.”
Nevertheless, Payton’s message was sent.
“I bet I could find a ping-pong ball somewhere in his office today if looked,” Payton quipped.
Payton and Loomis had experienced run-ins before, most notably a heated confrontation in front of staffers and team members after the Saints’ humiliating 41–36 upset loss to the Seahawks in the 2010 playoffs in Seattle. The incidents were rare but sometimes inevitable with the fiery Payton and his relentless quest for excellence. Payton’s energy was one of the main reasons Loomis hired him in 2006. Loomis knew he would need someone with Payton’s drive to overcome the unique challenges the Saints faced in post-Katrina New Orleans. But he also knew Payton’s ambition needed to be constantly managed.
In this way, Loomis, with his steady, even-keeled personality, was the perfect yin to the high-strung Payton’s yang. Loomis didn’t know much about Payton when he hired him in 2006. A shrewd judge of people, Loomis didn’t need long to realize Payton owned natural leadership skills, a strong work ethic, and an extraordinary offensive mind. Loomis learned to skillfully balance his role as counsel, booster, and boss to his talented head coach. He astutely knew the right time to give Payton a wide berth and when to rein him in. Payton could be a handful, but Loomis knew he was worth the hassle.
Payton was notorious around the Saints facility for obsessing over every detail of the operation. The same attention to detail that made his game plans so effective on Sundays was also directed at various aspects of the Saints’ day-to-day business operations. Payton stressed over everything from the size and color of the rally towels issued on game days at the Superdome to the size of the Christmas tree in the lobby foyer. When the Saints were winning, Payton’s obsessive-compulsive micromanagement was tolerable, a harmless quirk that caused