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NEW ORLEANS – Because he has a boyish face, an outgoing personality and a penchant for partying with Kenny Chesney – or perhaps simply because he is pro football’s most creative offensive strategist – Sean Payton has this way of being misinterpreted.

All of the aforementioned qualities possessed by the New Orleans Saints’ fourth-year coach obscure the most integral element of his essence: He’s a cold, calculated, competitive CEO with a steely swagger, and his goal in life is to leave his opponents overwhelmed and powerless.

And now, for the first time, he has a team capable of doing it.


In a game that cemented Payton’s team as the NFL’s most potent to date, the Saints (5-0) manhandled the New York Giants 48-27 in front of 70,011 fans in the Superdome on Sunday. With an uncontainable, versatile offense and an aggressive, dynamic defense, New Orleans put forth a performance befitting of its coach’s personality while following Payton’s predictably brainy game plan to perfection.

Whatever he’s cooking up, it seems to be working.

“I’d say it is,” Payton said.

He wasn’t smiling at the time. Shortly before leaving the Superdome, the last man out of the home locker room had gone on a mini-rant about the perception that the Saints are a finesse team, which in football circles is like being called “a bunch of total wusses.”

Bemoaning an article in Saturday’s New Orleans Times-Picayune examining the team’s reputed links to the F-word, Payton submitted Sunday’s successful execution of an offensive attack plan as evidence to the contrary. In layman’s terms, the Saints completely neutralized the 5-1 Giants’ greatest defensive strength – the pass rush, and specifically star defensive end Osi Umenyiora(notes) – while attacking New York’s most obvious weakness, safeties Michael Johnson and C.C. Brown(notes).

The result was that Payton’s alter ego, Drew Brees(notes), completed 23 of 30 passes for 369 yards and four touchdowns, at one point hitting on 15 consecutive throws while staking the Saints to a 34-17 halftime lead. It was, the Pro Bowl quarterback would later concede, the most impressive performance since he and Payton came to New Orleans in 2006 and completely changed the team’s culture.

“But I think our best is yet to come,” Brees added.

He wasn’t smiling, either. The Saints are a genial bunch in interviews, but this year they’re dead serious.

“Our coaches are making a very concerted effort this year to remind us to take every single game very seriously, as a separate entity, one at a time,” outside linebacker Scott Fujita(notes) said Sunday evening as he dined with his family (he and his wife, Jaclyn, have twin 22-month-old daughters) and some visiting friends from California at a crowded restaurant on St. Charles Avenue. “We’ve been very successful, but I think we’ll stay grounded.”

Fujita, who went down in the first quarter of Sunday’s game with a pulled left calf – he’ll have an MRI Monday to determine the extent of the injury – recalled the way the Saints took the football world by surprise in ’06, ultimately reaching the NFC championship game. Two wildly inconsistent seasons followed as Brees and the Saints put up big numbers but missed the playoffs with 7-9 and 8-8 records, respectively.

Suddenly, Payton had gone from being the NFL’s hottest young coach to one whose job security was rumored to be in question. Defensive coordinator Gary Gibbs, whose unit ranked 23rd in total defense (and tied for 26th in points allowed) in ’08, was fired after the season, and Payton went out and made what might have been his best acquisition since signing Brees: He hired Gregg Williams to oversee the “D”.

In fact, when Williams was offered more by Packers coach Mike McCarthy for a similar job in Green Bay, Payton forked over $250,000 of his own salary as an equalizer. Williams didn’t know the extra cash was coming out of Payton’s pocket until it was reported; it turned out to be money well spent.

A former Buffalo Bills head coach who had great success as a defensive coordinator for the Tennessee Titans and Washington Redskins, Williams isn’t the archetypical second banana. He has a healthy sense of self that he doesn’t go out of his way to conceal to his players, and he coaches like his khakis are on fire.

In other words, he’s the defense’s answer to Payton.

“They’re very similar,” Fujita said, laughing. “I mean, it’s kind of scary. We go at it in practice. It’s pretty cool.”

Added veteran free safety Darren Sharper(notes), the team’s other fantastic offseason acquisition: “He’s a heck of a coach. A lot of people think it’s a scheme. He preaches to us that it’s not a scheme, it’s a mentality. It’s a mentality to be aggressive, fly around and get to the football. And we get to move around out there, by design, which makes it a lot of fun.”

Williams wasn’t available to talk after Sunday’s spoilage of Eli Manning’s(notes) homecoming in a lockdown performance that was more impressive than the numbers suggested. That’s his policy this season, one seemingly designed to display deference to Payton’s authority.

However, in a recent interview with the Times-Picayune’s Mike Triplett, Williams seemed to take credit not only for the defense’s improved aggressiveness but also for the offense’s vastly upgraded rushing attack.

“This kind of football team has been here all the time,” he said. “They just had to say, ‘Let the dogs out.’ And it’s been fun to see that approach being taken in our run game. Our offensive line has had to defend themselves out in practice. All of a sudden, our offensive line’s pretty nasty. They’re finishing.”

By the time the Saints had finished with the Giants, New York’s 5-0 start seemed like the product of a soft schedule. The Giants had given up a combined 23 points in their previous three games and had the league’s top-ranked defense coming in. On New Orleans’ first 10 possessions Sunday, seven different Saints found the end zone while another drive ended on a fourth-and-goal stop of halfback Pierre Thomas(notes) inches from the goal line.

Harper chases down the Manning fumble
(Bill Feig/AP Photo)
At that point the Giants trailed just 27-17 with 55 seconds left in the first half, and it looked like we might have a legitimate ballgame. Two plays later Manning went back to pass, took a blindside sack from blitzing cornerback Roman Harper(notes) and fumbled. New Orleans linebacker Scott Shanle(notes) recovered and returned it 12 yards to the New York 7. Reggie Bush’s(notes) touchdown dash to the left pylon made it 34-17, and the Saints kept right on forcing the issue.

“Just imagine if we had scored and then got it back on the turnover,” Brees said. “We would’ve had [41] going into the half.”

That probably wouldn’t have been enough to satisfy Payton, who as a Giants assistant in 2002 had his play-calling responsibilities stripped by then-coach Jim Fassel and left to join Bill Parcells’ Cowboys staff after the season. Though Payton wouldn’t bite on the long-ago slight as a source of motivation, Brees said, “Deep down you can tell” that the coach was out to make a point.

His team made 48 of them, in fact, and gained 493 yards against a defense that had been giving up an average of 210. The Saints have yet to trail this season, and the hype machine will surely be humming as they prepare for next Sunday’s road game against the Miami Dolphins and beyond.

“That’s all right,” Brees said. “We’ll know how to handle it. We’ve been waiting for this for awhile.”

Payton will handle it by being even more aggressive and trying to punish everyone in his path. Don’t let the boyish smile fool you.

foreverfan

They can handle it, but can we?

DeadmaN

lol FF where do you find that stuff
or do you make it yourself

foreverfan

Actually I've never made any. There are hundreds of pics of stupid cats on the net. I've looked for stupid dog, horse & rabbit, but cats have such an attitude that it's easy to make fun of them.

Rugby Saint II

It takes 3-4 years to rebuild an organization that is in shambles. Payton has been bringing in the pieces for a while and it has come together after bringing Williams on board. To me he is the reason for this strong start. He brought swagger to this team.