Saints’ Payton still has some Broad Street Bully in him
PHILADELPHIA >> New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton is a dominant 4-2 against the Eagles, including 2-0 in the playoffs.
Payton has beaten three different Eagles head coaches with four starting quarterbacks, assuming Kevin Kolb meets the latter qualifying standard.
No NFL team won more games this season than the Saints (13-3), the top seed in the NFC entering a Sunday divisional showdown with the sixth-seeded Eagles at the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.
Certainly no team pounded the Eagles as mercilessly as the Saints, who registered a 48-7 decision in November.
And to think it all began a few blocks from Marple Newtown High School on Media Line Road in Newtown Square.
“I’ve got a real good memory,” Payton said on a conference call. “I can remember the back-to-back Stanley Cups. I can remember being off school after the second one. The Phillies’ world championship. I could give you the lineup when the Russians walked off the ice. I’ve had my fair share of cheese steaks and hoagies. I played my first Pop Warner football there for the Marple Newtown Junior Bengals.
“So, there’s got a close ties.”
The Flyers won Stanley Cups in 1974-75. Payton joined the noisy celebration on West Chester Pike in Broomall when the Phillies won the World Series in 1980. The Flyers, you may recall, defeated the powerful Red Army hockey team that had been crushing its NHL brethren, 4-1, in January of 1976. The Soviet team threatened to walk away after a few hard checks by the Flyers.
Though Payton hails from Scranton, and still has family there, that Broad Street Bully influence has traveled well.
Payton led the Saints to the Super Bowl XLIV championship in the 2009 season, the signature play of that game the onside kick to start the second half. It took about a half-hour to un-pile the players, much less determine that the Saints recovered.
Then there was Bountygate. Payton was suspended for the 2102 season by NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell for a bounty system targeting opposing players. He was implicated along with defensive coordinator Gregg Williams, who since has returned from a lifetime ban.
Payton is a man who will stop at nothing to win. The competitiveness, the creativity and the by-anymeans attitude make him lot of a difficult opponent.
“He’s been doing it a long time and he’s very creative,” Eagles head coach Doug Pederson said. “The thing is with Sean, too, he’s going to exhaust the film, like most coaches. But I think he definitely goes above and beyond to exhaust the tape. He’s going to find something that he can exploit on our defense. And he’s a great play caller, a tremendous play caller. The communication he and Drew Brees have is something that we strive to have here with our quarterbacks.”
Pederson applauded Payton for being imaginative with ultra-talented running back Alvin Kamara. He frequently lines up at wide receiver, where he’s among the league’s elite. Wide receiver Michael Thomas, who led the league in receptions, is in motion so often it makes defenders dizzy.
This season the Saints have made a multi-threat out of Taysom Hill, who has quarterback, running back and H-back skills. He runs, he throws and he blocks. When Hill is in, Brees often splits out to wide receiver.
“You can see the creativity that he possesses,” Pederson said of Payton.
Payton and the 2006 Saints defeated the Eagles twice, quarterback Donovan McNabb going down in the regular season game and Jeff Garcia getting eliminated in the divisional round of the playoffs. Both games were at the Superdome. Both scores were 27-24.
In the 2013 Wild Card playoffs, Foles got the Eagles a lead over the Saints late in their game at the Linc. But Brees led the team to a walk-off field goal and a 26-24 success over the Chip Kelly-coached Eagles.
Payton and Pederson are golfing pals, at least in the celebrity tournaments. Pederson had the upper hand the last offseason. It’s a given that they traded stories about some of their favorite calls.
“Doug, on offense is the same way,” Payton said. “They give you a lot of looks. And there’s a lot of threats you’ve got to defend.”
Payton entered the Saints locker room early this week with the Lombardi Trophy and $225,000 in cash and four armed guards. Then he told the Saints it all would be theirs if they won three games.
Pederson doesn’t do that type of stuff. To each coach, his own.
Payton always will have a Delco edge from his days worshiping the sports teams. Yeah, he didn’t mention the Eagles as a team he followed. And you know why.
At the end of the conference call with Delaware Valley area media, Payton challenged reporters.
“How many in there remember the LCB line?” he said, referencing the Reggie Leach, Bobby Clarke and Bill Barber configuration.
Naturally the young guys didn’t know.
“Who was the lefthander wing?” Payton continued. “He was on that second line. (pause) Rick MacLeish. Come on.”
The last time we looked, MacLeish was a center. But we’re sure the late Fred Shero, just as Payton might do, moved him around.