The New Orleans Saints' season ended in the divisional round of the playoffs, but they came oh so close to booking their trip to the NFC Championship Game, where they would've met the eventual Super Bowl champions, the Philadelphia Eagles. The Minneapolis Miracle -- a 61-yard walk-off touchdown from Case Keenum to Stefon Diggs -- ended the Saints' season in pretty much the worst possible way.

Just take it from Saints coach Sean Payton. On Thursday, Payton told Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk that he drew up a game-plan for the Eagles even after the Saints' season ended with that heartbreaking loss. 

"You get over the tough loss. Everyone has different ways to do it. We came back after that game, we met, we began a procedure of evaluations," he said. "And look, on Wednesday and Thursday, we had the Philly cut-ups. I game-planned Philly like we were going to play them. Because I wasn't ready to stop game-planning. So, like an imaginary 'let's pretend that didn't happen.' It was just my way of dealing with it, I guess."

Surprisingly, Payton prefaced that story by saying it's easier for him to get over that kind of heartbreaking ending than a blowout. The Saints' radio announcers would probably disagree, judging by their immediate reaction.

Payton often faces criticism for his competitiveness, which has led to some notable incidents from his decision to make a chocking gesture at Falcons running back Devonta Freeman to his decision to mock Vikings fans with a Skol chant, but his story of creating an irrelevant game-plan for a game his team didn't even qualify for should endear him to both Saints and NFL fans. More broadly speaking, I'd argue his competitiveness is a good thing for the NFL, a league where so many coaches behave like robots and speak in cliches. Give me more trash-talking and tense hand shakes and less coach-speak, please.

In a perfect world, Payton would release that game-plan for public consumption so we can see how it differed from the Vikings' plan, which resulted in a 38-7 Eagles beatdown. But given the Saints will host the Eagles during the 2018 season, Payton will undoubtedly prefer to keep his game-plan stored away for future use. Both teams -- assuming Drew Brees does in fact return to New Orleans as expected and Carson Wentz makes a full recovery from his torn ACL -- should be viewed as legitimate Super Bowl contenders coming out of the NFC. So, there's a chance they'll meet in the playoffs, too.