It simply wasn’t a great idea to test Sean Payton on his decisions after the New Orleans Saints’ 48-46 loss to the San Francisco 49ers Sunday. Not the media. The butcher at Whole Foods.
The coach has his Saints in first place but that wasn’t enough for the butcher at the supermarket to avoid questioning why the coach decided to go for a two-point conversion in the loss.
The discussion first came to light during the coach’s radio show.
“I was actually shopping for my dinner at Whole Foods,” Payton said on his WWL radio with Bobby Hebert and Zach Strief on Monday.. “People are like, ‘Oh, he actually shops for his dinner?’ Yeah, I shop for my dinner. And I go down the aisle with an aisle cart like everyone else.”
On Thursday, Payton went into more detail about it, giving the play-by-play.
“I was kind of in that sliding down the aisle, got the produce right here to the left, you see the meats, I made a right and I’m heading for the coffee,” I thought they were all kind of in jest, and I heard one of them say something about, ‘Why’d you go for two?’ I kept walking toward the dairy and I’m like, ‘Ah, I’m not letting this go, I’m turning around.’”
Payton said that the butcher just wanted to know, so he obliged — and gave some jest back.
“I would never that early, but when we get a penalty, now we’re on the 1-yard line and we’re 50 percent closer than the 2. He got it, then I gave him a hard time and said, ‘Some of these cuts don’t look good to me.’ That was what happened. It was in jest. We were having a little fun.”
Wonder how the coach will handle things when the steaks, er stakes, rise in the postseason.