Before facing his old team on Thursday, Denver Broncos coach Sean Payton held his usual mid-week press conference on Tuesday. This week, the Broncos will travel to take on the New Orleans Saints, Payton’s old team that he led to a Super Bowl win in 2009.
During his presser, Payton was asked about his time in New Orleans and what he enjoyed during his 15 years with the Saints. The 61-year-old coach then gave a lengthy response, his longest of the press conference.
Here is Payton’s complete answer, transcribed by the team’s PR staff:
I think what happened, none of us planned. In other words, I don’t know that we anticipated where we were going at the time we were going. We were going post-[Hurricane] Katrina. I was with Dallas, and I interviewed in Green Bay. I was on the New Orleans interview waiting to hear from the late [former Packers General Manager] Ted Thompson. [Saints General Manager] Mikey Loomis, I had met for the first time. I seemed to like him, but have you ever been on one of those interviews where you’re kind of looking around thinking, ‘Man this is his problem, it’s not going to be mine.’ (Laughs) That evening, I went back to the hotel to take a break before dinner and I got a voice message that I hadn’t gotten that job. I remember throwing my phone into the pillow just like, ‘Holy cow.’
Where I’m going with it is [former Saints QB] Drew [Brees] came. I remember us recruiting him thinking he’s going to Miami. Then obviously, you take a player like [formers Saints RB] Reggie Bush who was going to get drafted by the Texans. So fate would have it there were a number of us that ended up there. All right. So we’re starting a rebuild, but I think none of us could ever understand the impact relative to it was bigger than football. That we weren’t prepared for. I don’t think any of us were. That first year in the preseason, I don’t know if we won a game. At one point I remember thinking, ‘I don’t know if we’re going to win a game this year.’ Then we won a close one at Cleveland to start the year. We still hadn’t played at home. They were still fixing the Superdome. We went on the road and fell down to Green Bay. If my memory is right, it was 13 points we came back and won that game. So right off the top, we had some close games and then beat Atlanta. I think that was the Monday night game. I’ve said this before: it wasn’t our best team, but it was one of our tougher teams. We ended up in the NFC Championship Game in that first year, but it was more than that. It was just the recovery. We would fly home from regular season games [and] there would be 1,000 people at the airport. None of us could have ever envisioned that. So there was a uniqueness to it. They’ve always been passionate, but I think a lot of it had to do with the year prior and how difficult it was.
Then pretty soon, I remember we had to—you have to beat your division. [Former Buccaneers Head Coach Jon] Gruden was at Tampa and they had won the Super Bowl. ‘Foxy’ (Former Panthers Head Coach John Fox)—those are two good friends of mine. The two closest. I’d worked with John for four years at the Giants. We were both coordinators there and went to the Super Bowl—John Fox. Gruden hired me. I was his assistant in Philly. These are two good coaches in our division. That was the first step to try. Meanwhile I think that uniqueness timing wise and then they hadn’t had a lot of success. So that was different. When I say, there were over 100 people that shared that same experience. That was like, ‘Wow.’ We weren’t prepared for that.
Payton spoke to the media for 18 minutes on Tuesday. His three previous mid-week pressers were all about 14 minutes. Clearly, this isn’t an ordinary week for Payton.
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