Jay Vise

Drew Brees reveals that days before the Saints’ first game back in the Superdome after Katrina, Sean Payton turned off every light in the stadium and showed the team footage of what the city of New Orleans had endured, and then said it’s only special if they win “That was really the moment where it was sending a message to our fans and the world that New Orleans was going to come back stronger than ever. A lot of that team was new. We hadn’t stepped foot in the Superdome. Sean recognized that Monday night was going to be super emotional, so he was like, ‘Man, I’ve got to get the guys in the building so they can feel it a little bit before we just step foot in there Monday night.’” “So Saturday night, we go in there and practice. It’s crisp, it’s fast, and then he brings us up afterward and just kills the lights in the whole Dome. Pitch black.” “All of a sudden, up on the Jumbotron, he plays a piece of the Spike Lee documentary about Katrina. It was a recognition of what happened in this city, what this fan base had been through, what this building represented, and what we were about to embark on Monday night.” “Bro, not a dry eye in the house. Everybody’s crying. Then the lights come up, we’re all looking at each other, and he gets up there and says, ‘I don’t need to tell you what this game on Monday night means to these people and how special it’s going to be, but it’s only special if you win.’” “And that was it. That’s all you need. It wasn’t a feeling of pressure, it was like, man, we’ve got a responsibility. We were brought here for this. This is what we can do. This is our contribution. Let’s go freaking win for these people.” “To me, that’s a sign of a great head coach. He identified what needed to be said in the moment and touched every guy. One of his great talents is being able to block out all that noise and narrow it down to, ‘Man, this is all I want you thinking about.’”