Payton and Brees, стр. 81
Along the way, they have authored some of the most dominant offensive performances in league history. The Payton-Brees Saints have handed NFL bluebloods like the New York Giants, New England Patriots, and Philadelphia Eagles some of the worst defeats in the history of their respective franchises.
What’s more, the tandem has brought unprecedented stability and success to the once-moribund Saints organization. In the 39 seasons before Brees and Payton arrived, 28 men started at quarterback for the Saints under 13 head coaches. Those quarterbacks combined to post a 237–352–5 record, a winning percentage of 40.3. In that span, the Saints made 43 appearances on national television and won two division titles and one playoff game. In the first 14 years of the Payton-Brees tenure, the Saints have gone 138–84, a 62.1 winning percentage. Their winning percentage together is a robust 63 percent. In that span, the Saints have made 50 prime-time television appearances, won six division titles, and gone 8–7 in the playoffs.
The freewheeling, high-flying offensive attack has made Saints football the hottest ticket in New Orleans. Every home game at the Superdome has been sold out since their arrival in 2006, and the city of New Orleans annually leads all U.S. markets in television ratings for Saints and NFL games, according to Nielsen Company and the NFL.
“It’s been the perfect marriage,” McCown said. “You have one of the greatest offensive coaching minds and one of the greatest quarterbacks together, and yet they’re not so egotistical that they have to have it their way. There’s an understanding between the two that is unique. They know that there’s nobody else out there for them. I don’t see Drew ever playing in a different uniform because he knows there’s no other marriage of quarterback to play-caller that will ever be the same for him. And I think Sean’s the same way. We may not ever see that type of connection and productivity between two pieces of the puzzle ever again in this game.”
At 15 years and counting, the Payton-Brees partnership has outlasted some of the greatest coach-quarterback duos in NFL history, making it a unique tandem. Peyton Manning played 14 years with offensive coordinator Tom Moore, but he never had one head coach for more than seven seasons. While Belichick and Brady were together for 19 years and the Pittsburgh Steelers’ Mike Tomlin and Ben Roethlisberger have been together for 13 years, neither head coach in those partnerships has an offensive background, making the Payton-Brees duo the most enduring and successful marriage between offensive guru and quarterback in NFL history.
None of the 11 Hall of Fame quarterbacks who have played since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970 has enjoyed a run with the same coach to match the 15-year partnership Brees has had with Payton. Chuck Noll and Terry Bradshaw spent 14 years together in Pittsburgh. Don Shula and Dan Marino teamed for 13 seasons in Miami. Bill Walsh and Joe Montana had a 10-year run in San Francisco.
“They’ve changed football,” said Joe Brady, the precocious passing game coordinator who led the LSU Tigers to the 2019 national championship before taking the offensive coordinator job for the Carolina Panthers. “Sean has changed the way teams play offense, and Drew has changed the way we look at quarterbacks. They’re special.”
And yet as great as Payton and Brees have been during their long tenure in New Orleans, for all of the games they’ve won, all the records they’ve broken and milestones they’ve surpassed, they still have just one Super Bowl victory on their résumé. And that inconvenient truth alone has prevented many longtime league observers and experts from ranking them alongside Belichick-Brady and Walsh-Montana among the greatest coach-quarterback combinations in NFL history.
That’s why heartbreaking losses like the Minnesota Miracle and NOLA No-Call game were so painful for Payton and Brees. More than anyone, they understand how difficult it is to get to that point in an NFL season. And to have the rug pulled out from under them in such unique fashion made the losses all the more difficult to digest. The Payton-Brees narrative might read differently if Marcus Williams hadn’t inexplicably whiffed on Stefon Diggs to produce the Minneapolis Miracle. Their legacy might be viewed in a different light had the referees not committed the biggest gaffe in officiating history against the Rams in the 2019 NFC Championship Game. Or if the defense could have made a late stop in the 2012 NFC divisional playoff shootout against the San Francisco 49ers. Those setbacks prevented Payton and Brees from potentially returning to the Super Bowl and bringing a second Lombardi Trophy back to New Orleans. The Payton-Brees legacy might look entirely different had those games gone the other way.
Winning another Super Bowl was the main reason Brees cited when he announced his plans to return for the 2020 season. And if Payton and Brees can make it back to the big game in 2021 or beyond, they would achieve yet another milestone: it would represent the longest duration between Super Bowl appearances for any coach-quarterback combination in history.
“There’s a level of consistency with that offense that really hasn’t happened before [in NFL history],” Marrone said. “When you look at the number of players and coaches who have filtered through the offense over the years, the amount of production is what’s amazing to me. The one constant has been Sean and Drew. Sometimes when you have such strong personalities in those areas that sometimes