Payton and Brees, стр. 9
“Let’s be honest, we’re in New Orleans, and it’d been under water [several] months earlier, and you drive through the city and you’re seeing boats on top of houses and all these things,” Loomis said. “You don’t have all the services, the schools are closed, all those different things that happened.”
The rebuilding task was daunting, but Payton remained unfazed. A year earlier he almost accepted the head coaching job with the Oakland Raiders but backed out at the last minute and returned to Dallas. Then he was the runner-up to Mike McCarthy for the Green Bay Packers head coaching job before settling on the Saints job. The Saints were his first head coaching job at any level of football, and he was excited about the possibilities.
“There were a lot of challenges,” Payton said. “But we also knew there was a great opportunity here.”
Payton knew he had to change the culture, and he set the tone early. Eleven starters from the 2005 season were shipped out, including popular wide receiver Donte Stallworth, a former first-round draft pick. Twenty-six new players made up the initial 53-man roster. He built the roster with average Joes who possessed high character, a strong work ethic, and a team-first attitude. He stressed teamwork over individual accomplishment. One of the first things he did as coach was show the players tape of the 2004 U.S. Olympic men’s basketball team, which finished a disappointing third in the Athens Games despite a lineup that featured LeBron James, Allen Iverson, Tim Duncan, and Dwyane Wade.
“You have to look at why [the Saints] have only won one playoff game in 40 years,” Payton said. “There’s a reason. We’re in a place where, within 10 minutes, you can get a daiquiri, sit at a blackjack table, and go to a strip club—and you can do it until four in the morning. If you’ve got the kind of people who are susceptible to that, they’ll find trouble. So, yeah, character’s important. New England showed us the model the past years.”
Payton also made subtle changes. If a meeting was at 8:30 am in 2005, it began at 8:00 am during Year One. Instead of wearing black jerseys at home, the Saints wore white.
“Change is healthy,” Payton said. “I felt the situation in New Orleans was right and I was ready for it. None of these jobs is perfect. Every one has strengths and weakness and challenges. You look at it and know it’s going to present challenges. I flew back after the initial interview with Mickey and thought, ‘This is a real good challenge.’ Part of that is what’s happening in the city. I think we can be part of that process and get the arrow pointing up in that area and for the people there.”
The signing of Brees was the catalyst. The Saints hadn’t had a Pro Bowl quarterback since Manning in 1979. And they hadn’t had a great offensive-minded head coach since Hank Stram in the mid-1970s. The Saints’ previous head coaches were all defensive-minded tough guys: Mora; Mike Ditka; Jim Haslett.
Payton and Brees ushered in a new era of hope and possibility to New Orleans, arriving at a time when the city and franchise desperately needed strong, competent leadership.
It easily could have turned out differently. Payton could have landed in Green Bay. Brees could have signed with Miami. Yet, fate brought them together in New Orleans. And back in 2006, Saints fans, desperate for a return to respectability and competitiveness, turned their lonely eyes to a first-time head coach and a quarterback with a surgically repaired throwing arm.
“You go back to that time when a lot of us came here six months post-Katrina,” Brees said in 2019, recalling those early days in New Orleans. “All of us leaning on one another. You know, this was this is a new environment for Sean. It was a new situation, first-time head coach. Man, he had his hands full trying to put together a staff and a team to try to put together a winner to give the people of New Orleans and this community something to cheer about. I think he drew the connection very quickly. He helped to create that bond. He had to create the culture here that fits the mold of this city and the Who Dat Nation. So I think he’s always embraced that. So that’s one of the big reasons why there’s such a connection between the two.”
3. Destined to Be a Saint
History will show that Payton ended up in New Orleans after the Green Bay Packers chose Mike McCarthy instead of him during their coaching search in 2006. But fate might have played a role, as well.
On December 29, 1963, Thomas and Jeanne Payton welcomed their third-born child into the world in San Mateo, California, christening him Patrick Sean Payton.
A devout Irish Catholic family, the Paytons named the boy after the Rev. Patrick Peyton, an Irish-born American priest who had traveled the globe after World War II and the Korean War on what became known as “The Rosary Crusade,” imploring people to pray the rosary and coining the phrase, “The family that prays together stays together.”
Payton’s parents were from Scranton, Pennsylvania, and he spent his grade school years in Newtown Square, a bedroom community 30 miles west of Philadelphia. Payton would play sandlot ball with his older brother, Thomas, and his friends before the family moved to Naperville, just outside of Chicago, when he was in his early teens.
“I can remember that Sean always hung out with kids three to five years older than him,” Thomas said. “They’d let him do stuff, watch them play football, touch or tackle. Kids his age would come over after school and ask my mom if Sean could come out and play. My mom [who died in 2002] wouldn’t let my brother stay up late unless he took a nap. So the only way he could watch Monday Night Football—and we’re talking about fifth or sixth grade here—is if he took a