Payton sticks to promise to get slimed after win

Saints coach Sean Payton understood how crisp his white and shining patent leather Jordan 11 retro low tops were.

He also understood he made a promise.

“I told Nickelodeon I would do it,” Payton said after the 21-9 win over the Bears on Sunday. “I just saw the buckets. And yeah, we’re going to do that here in a few minutes.”

Cue the splash of green goo cascading over Payton as he sat in front of a Nickelodeon poster backdrop. Yes, the Super Bowl-winning coach got slimed.

“That was a no brainer,” said defensive end Cameron Jordan, wearing a Dexter’s Laboratory sweater. “I’m more mad I couldn’t set him up for me to dump the bucket on him. But somebody had to get slimed and I’m glad it was him.”

Payton’s sliming capped off an entertaining debut NFL broadcast on Nickelodeon, an effort by Nick parent company ViacomCBS to engage new football fans.

TDs prompted an explosion of virtual slime, a trademark SpongeBob smile stretched between the uprights during field-goal and extra-point attempts, and Drew Brees’ accuracy was explained in audience-appropriate terms.

“He’s that kid at recess who never misses you in dodgeball,” former NFL receiver Nate Burleson, who served as color analyst, said on the broadcast.

Even as the Saints controlled the game and each team was low scoring for most of the contest, Nickelodeon “Nickified” the contest with bright colors and nostalgia-inducing graphics.

Fifteen-year-old Nickelodeon star Gabrielle Nevaeh Green joined Burleson and play-by-play analyst Noah Eagle in the Superdome booth as they explained the game to football beginners in terms that would best relate to their audience.

New spins continued from a comparison between the success of Saints running back Alvin Kamara and Alvin Seville of “Alvin and the Chipmunks,” to a hearty celebration in SpongeBob’s Bikini Bottom after Kamara gashed the Bears’ defense.

In celebration of Kamara tearing up the defense, Nickelodeon animators teed up a clip of SpongeBob literally tearing himself apart.

Even penalties were fun. Some were explained by the child adaptation of Big Bang Theory’s Sheldon, Young Sheldon noting of defensive pass interference: “That’s a complicated rule. I like it.”

Viewers learned players and coaches call flags laundry. “For all the kids out there listening,”

Burleson added, “help your mom and dad with the laundry.”