Payton and Brees, стр. 72
First, Payton got mad. He delivered a tongue-lashing to NBC executives. Then he got even. When NBC’s Sunday Night Football crew arrived in town a few weeks later to set up for the broadcast of the Saints’ home game against the Detroit Lions, a Lucky Dog stand and vendor greeted them at the airport. Another was strategically posted next to the NBC production truck outside the Superdome on game day. Everyone had a big laugh. Ambush II was a rousing success.
Early in his Saints tenure, Payton might have stewed about the perceived slight for a full season. In 2011, he had mellowed to the point of using humor to send his message. Today, a more mature Payton probably wouldn’t even waste time with the situation.
“Doing this long enough, you learn to focus on the things you can control,” Payton said. “It took a while. It certainly wasn’t a strength of mine in ’06, ’07, or ’08. Over time, you begin to really focus your energy, your battery life, for instance. And that’s come from experience.”
During a press briefing with reporters before the Saints’ wild-card playoff game against the Minnesota Vikings in January 2020, Payton reflected on this evolution. He joked about the wasted energy he spent obsessing over trivial details like the size of the Christmas tree in the team cafeteria.
“Sometimes I can be a little bit obsessive that way,” Payton said. “I guarantee you in ’09 I spent wasted time on stuff like that. You just begin to understand, hey, there are certain things that you are not going to be able to control.
“But I think the small things are important things and all of it. As soon as those begin to erode, I think then that’s not good. I don’t know that that’s wasting time. But there are certain things, though.”
Payton still has his moments. He blew up on Saints executives behind closed doors about the amenities—or lack thereof—at the team hotel in suburban Minneapolis during the 2018 season. But he’s learned to pick his battles rather than jousting at every windmill he encounters.
Unlike early in his tenure, he rarely spars with media members. He buried the hatchet with many reporters he once blackballed because of various perceived transgressions. He even sends members of the local media corps a holiday pack of Jeni’s ice cream each Christmas.
And to the surprise of everyone, he mended fences with NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and worked closely with him to implement a new replay rule on pass interference during the 2019 NFL owners meeting in Phoenix, Arizona. The two had experienced a rocky relationship for years and were essentially on non-speaking terms after Goodell suspended Payton for his role in the Bountygate scandal. Today, Payton is an active and involved member on the league’s competition committee.
Even his mentor, Parcells, has noticed a maturation in Payton, both on and off the field.
“Sean has grown as a coach because he’s experienced so much over the years,” Parcells said. “He’s gone through a couple of cycles of players in New Orleans now, and until a coach has been through a couple of those cycles you haven’t really been through the whole gamut. Only experience...only trial and error—owning and being accountable for your mistakes—will allow you to grow and improve. Sean has done that in New Orleans. I’m very proud of what he’s accomplished, because it’s not easy.”
Many NFL officials and observers thought Payton would follow his mentor’s lead and bolt for a job in a big market as soon as Brees’ tenure with the Saints ended. A year seemingly didn’t go by that he wasn’t rumored to be headed to Dallas to coach for his longtime friend and former boss, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones.
In the fall of 2019, he attempted to quell the speculation once and for all. He signed a five-year contract extension that paid him approximately $15 million a year, a deal that made him the second- highest-paid coach in the league behind Belichick. It also sent a message to the rest of the NFL.
“This is home,” Payton said. “I have a house here. I’m here full-time. Every year, we do more.”
In 2018 and 2019, Payton oversaw the renovations of the Saints training facility, including a state-of-the-art locker room, training room, and $3 million squad room replete with a $600,000 video board. He was intimately involved in plans for a new dining hall adjacent to the team’s indoor practice facility.
“The level that he is doing things right now is totally off the charts,” Zach Strief said. “It’s everything. He cares about and is involved in every detail of the facility.”
Case in point: the cold trailer the Saints use to regulate core body temperatures during training camp. The climate-controlled long trailer is a lifesaver during camp. Parked in the end zone of the team’s practice fields, it allows 20 or so players at a time to cool off in the 32-degree chill and escape the unrelenting triple-digit heat indices of the Louisiana summer. Payton updated the plain, non-descript trailer they used in Year One. The new model was custom-painted in Saints black and gold colors and furnished with benches and windows. He had inspirational messages painted on the inside in gold lettering.
“That’s Sean,” Strief said. “He doesn’t just want a cold trailer that looks like a shipping container. He wants something the players can be proud of, something first-class. And he’s like that across the board. It’s the food. It’s the weight room equipment. It’s