Payton breaks from coaching (frequently) to put squeeze on press

If there is one thing we've learned about Sean Payton it is this: He's Sean Payton, and you're not.

Brett Favre is coming to town. So is Adrian Peterson. So is that Vikings defense.

One of the first things on Payton's mind after a blistering beat-down of Arizona last week? Being a smart-ass. Waving that little finger in the media's face.

The media shouldn't make Sean Payton angry. They wouldn't like him when he's angry. (AP)

He lectured the media about the perception that New Orleans is a finesse team. That's what you're worried about when the Super Bowl is within spitting distance? You don't obsess over the number of calories in a Krispy Kreme. You just inhale the sucker.

But that's why he's Sean Payton, and you're not.

It wasn't always like this. Payton wasn't always atop Mount Olympus, belching lightning bolts at the kingdom below. He didn't always believe the football world should worship at the spirals of his playbook. Sean the Magnificent was once a laid-back guy who treated everyone around him with respect.

When Payton was an assistant coach with the Giants, I covered him, and saw a shy and smart man with great potential. Since then, something's happened. Even Brian Billick thinks Payton is smug.

Now, Payton acts like a man who believes he should run a team, run the media that covers his team and control the message, too.

He has a singular and much larger purpose to worry about, like, oh, a shot at the Super Bowl. Yet Payton seems just as concerned with the trivial, things outside the scope of his purview as a coach.

This is one of my favorite Payton stories: In 2007, a Saints beat writer wrote a story about a player who was going to miss an upcoming game. The writer asked the player if he was going to participate in the game and the player said he wasn't. At the time, Payton claimed the player would indeed play.

So the writer wrote the accurate story -- not playing. The following day, around 8 a.m., the writer received a call from Payton, and Payton cursed out the writer calling him a "negative f---" about a half-dozen times before hanging up.

Payton calling up writers to berate them isn't unusual. It has happened many times before. Telemarketers are less intrusive.

These aren't just garden-variety media squabbles. These are indications of something else, like a despot syndrome. Or possibly, despite Payton's talent, there is a thick haze of insecurity settled around him like a moat around a castle.

While the media ranks in popularity next to drug dealers, prostitutes, Dick Cheney and Simon Cowell, they are nevertheless conveyors of sports news. Without the journalists that cover the Saints, all fans would get is Kafkaesque nonsense from the official Payton politburo.

My second-favorite story: There is a former writer for the Times-Picayune who left that newspaper to work for Neworleans.com. When the writer, now working for the website, wrote something critical about Reggie Bush, he and the site were both suddenly banned from covering practice.

The Saints argued it was a fringe site, but the organization had credentialed the site for the previous several years without an issue. It wasn't until the Bush criticism came that the ban was put in.

In an attempt to cover up their specific ban of the writer, the Saints then instituted a policy that banned all dot.com media from practice.

Yes, all dot.coms -- including CBSSports.com. It was a completely made-up rule, done to punish a single writer. The NFL eventually stepped in and gave the writer a credential to practices and the NFC Championship Game on Sunday against the Vikings, but the credentials came from the league, not the Saints.

Few, if any, teams ban legitimate media from covering practices and games because few, if any, coaches and team officials believe it's worth their time to go to such lengths to manipulate the message.

Later, that same writer asked Payton about a radio report that Payton and tight end Jeremy Shockey got into an argument about whether Shockey would play in Week 16 against Tampa. The Saints apparently wanted to withhold Shockey's game check because they felt his toe injury -- an alleged result of kicking a vending machine after the argument -- was non-football related. Payton vehemently denied all the reports.

But Payton didn't stop there. The reporter who asked the question? The Saints rescinded his game credentials. Just days after simply asking a question, the writer was banned from covering games and stepping foot into the facility.

That practically never happens. It's so unusual and inappropriate and Ming the Merciless-like, it quietly stunned a press corps that had become used to Payton's over-the-top antics.

Payton is also notorious for releasing misleading information about injuries. One of the most egregious examples involved Jabari Greer. In early December, Payton told reporters that Greer's hernia injury was progressing just fine.

What Payton failed to say was that just one day before, Greer had sports hernia surgery.

Hernia surgery = fine ... in Payton World.

At stake in all this? Nothing important ... just allegedly skirting NFL rules, manipulating press privileges as punitive measures, and, on occasion, common decency. No coach should behave this way, no matter how great his play calls are. That's it. It's that simple.

Payton will likely get to the Super Bowl and win. It'll cover up his personal blemishes (for the moment), but that doesn't diminish his treatment of others. Winning shouldn't deodorize bullying.

Payton has bigger things to worry about, like, being Sean Payton and you're not.