Saints' ultimate edge? Sean Payton, Motivational Genius

MIAMI -- Sean Payton is a controlling, combative, micro-managing jerk. Maybe you've heard that. Definitely I have. It's a hot topic among media members this week, an underground issue that reached the surface last week right here at CBSSports.com. Here's the story we wrote. Do I believe every word of it? I do.

But I'm here to tell you something else about the Saints head coach, another underground issue that needs to be brought to light. It's an issue that could, and probably will, impact Super Bowl XLIV on Sunday. After spending the past 10 days trying to decide between the Saints and the Colts, I'm going with the Saints, and this issue is why:

Sean Payton's motivational tactics seem to work for the NFC champs. (US Presswire)

Whether anybody else likes Payton is irrelevant, because his players love him. And they love him because Sean Payton is a motivational genius. Note the key word there. I didn't say he's a good motivator. Didn't even call him great.

I called the man a motivational genius.

"You could say that," said Saints linebacker Troy Evans, an eight-year veteran.

I just did. And I'm not just saying it and then leaving the room. Genius isn't simply a word I'm throwing against the wall and hoping it'll stick. I'll show you why he's a motivational genius. I'll show you several times. By the time this story is finished, you'll understand. And maybe, by the time this story is finished, you'll do like I did and go against the oddsmakers and even your own common sense and decide that the Saints, not because of their skill or their system but because of their coach, will win Super Bowl XLIV.

I'll tell the best story first, because it gave me goosebumps when I heard it and because I can't wait to feel those goosebumps when I write it. Oh, good -- they're starting already. The story goes like this:

Payton typically brings in guests to speak to his team. Sometimes it's football, sometimes it's not. Country singer Kenny Chesney and NBA coach Avery Johnson have spoken to the Saints. So has NFL Hall of Famer Ronnie Lott. It was Lott who spoke to the Saints in the preseason, standing in the locker room and telling this team that was coming off an 8-8 season in 2008 that he could "smell greatness" in the room.

The Saints won their first 13 games of 2009, lost their last three, then won their playoff opener to reach the NFC Championship Game against Minnesota. The night before the game -- 60 minutes of football away from the first Super Bowl appearance in franchise history -- Payton showed his team a motivational highlight video. When it was over and the lights came back on, Lott was standing in the room with a smile on his face.

"We went nuts," Evans said.

And they beat the Vikings in overtime.

The Saints have had a bizarre season -- winning those 13 games, then losing three, and now winning two going into the Super Bowl -- but there is a common thread: The bigger the game, the better they are. That's the genius of Payton. Maybe his inability to harness his team's focus for some of the smaller games -- like struggling victories against inept foes like Washington and St. Louis and that baffling loss to Tampa Bay on Dec. 27 -- is Payton's biggest weakness. But his strength is getting his team ready for the big ones.

The game against the New York Giants on Oct. 18 was one of the biggest NFL games of the first half of the season. New York was 5-0, New Orleans 4-0. The Saints blew the Giants out 48-27.

The game against New England on Nov. 30 was one of the biggest NFL games of the season. That week, his team 10-0 and starting to hear about history, Payton got the sense his players were tight. He called a team meeting and walked into the room dressed like Patriots coach Bill Belichick, fraying hoodie and all. As the players stared at him, Payton proceeded to give them a speech in fluent Belichick, right down to the mumbling monotone. The players went nuts in the room and then went nuts on the field, blowing the Patriots out 38-17.

"I knew he had a sense of humor," said rookie linebacker Jonathan Casillas, "but he has a sense of humor. As a player, you want that stuff. You want discipline and structure and all that, but when the biggest games come around, you want a coach who can keep things loose. He can do that. You just never know when."

Or what. There's a childlike quality to Payton, and I'm not talking about his oft-cited resemblance to Malcolm in the Middle star Frankie Muniz. It's not how he looks, it's what he does. And it doesn't jibe with the Sean Payton the media is coming to know and loathe. That Sean Payton is known to call reporters at home and chew them out for writing something, even something factual, that Payton didn't want to see in print.

This childlike Payton was watching his son play a video football game a few years ago and got the idea for a movie: In post-Katrina New Orleans, a kid happens onto a refurbished video game that controls the action in actual NFL games. Payton then jotted down several pages of a script and handed the idea over to a professional screen writer. It's called The Xbox Kid. It could be a movie some day. We'll see.

This childlike Payton sent his players into New Orleans this preseason for a scavenger hunt, just for fun. Payton teamed with cornerback Pierson Prioleau, and when they found one item on their list -- a real pirate -- Payton "started talking like a pirate to the guy," Prioleau said. "He was going, 'Ahoy,' and all that stuff."

This childlike Payton digested the news that his defensive coordinator, Gregg Williams, had inadvertently given Indianapolis some bulletin-board material last week by saying the Saints planned to give Colts quarterback Peyton Manning some "remember-me hits." Payton's response was to wait a few days, then send a waiter over to Williams' brunch table before Super Bowl Media Day with two jars of peanut butter, some saltine crackers and a glass full of sand.

"The sand was to wash it down," Williams said. "Maybe if I took all that stuff down I might be able to keep my mouth shut and not say something at Media Day that will haunt him all week long, like I did last week."

Earlier in the week, Payton and the Saints' Pro Bowl players had arrived in Miami early. When the rest of the team got to the hotel, they saw several enormous, sheepish bellhops -- and one especially earnest bellhop -- ready to carry their bags into the hotel. It was Payton, the earnest one, and the other Pro Bowl players. It was a lark, something to get the Saints in a relaxed frame of mind. It was an idea Payton freely admits he took from former 49ers coach Bill Walsh.

"He was very successful in the postseason," Payton said of Walsh, "and if we take a simple play that we like that he had success with, then why wouldn't we apply that to another aspect of what we're doing? I mean, we flat-out plagiarized [the bellhop prank]."

Cute admission. Cute story. Apparently this intense Payton fellow has several layers, like this one: Before the divisional playoff game against Arizona, Payton told the team there would be a roster addition: Running back Deuce McAllister, one of the most popular players in team history, was coming back. Just for one week, because McAllister was injured. He wasn't signed to play. He was signed to be an honorary game captain -- to lead the team onto the field before their playoff game, to fire up the crowd and even the Saints.

Score of that game: New Orleans 45, Arizona 14.

To recap:

Payton mimicked Belichick before the Patriots game. He re-signed McAllister before the first playoff game. He brought back Lott before the NFC title game. Three biggest games of the season, and the Saints won them all.

I wonder what Payton has planned for the Super Bowl. After the fired-up Saints win, maybe someone will tell me.