Coming Back Stronger (25 page)

The Year of Finishing Strong

With all that had happened with Mom, my 2009 preseason was off to a really rocky start. In the past I’d always been able to compartmentalize certain things and focus on the task at hand, but I’d never experienced anything like this before. The players and coaches were very supportive and told me to take all the time I needed, but I was honestly glad to be back with the team and get to work. Anything to take my mind off the tragedy of my mother’s death.

As a team, we knew we needed to make this our year to change things. We’d been floundering the past two seasons, and it was time for a shake-up. If you want to do something you’ve never done, you have to prepare by doing something you’ve never done. We evaluated everything from 2007 and 2008 and found that the common denominator in the games we lost was “finishing.” As we watched game clips and discussed what had gone wrong, that word kept bouncing off the walls. Finish. What would have happened in those seasons if we had finished half the games we’d lost in the closing moments? We would have been playoff bound, if not divisional champs.

As I looked around at my teammates that year, I saw we had a lot of people with God-given talent. But we needed something more than that—talent will get you only so far. Champions are forged from commitment, preparation, and discipline. I believed we could go a long way if we were willing to buy into everything that was being taught. I’m always looking for ways to motivate myself and others in the off-season. I told the guys that if we finished every game, we could not only win the division—we could get a first-round bye and be the number one seed. Even better, we could win it all. Instead of focusing on a bunch of different things we needed to do, we pinpointed just one. We kept it simple, and that phrase finish strong stuck. We all believed that was exactly what we needed to do.

On a Monday morning in April, we had our first off-season meeting to kick off our program. We went over the basic stuff—welcome; here is a recap of last season; this is what we expect from players; here are some things we need to improve upon as we look ahead. I had gotten the okay from Coach to have ten minutes with the team, both players and coaches, at the end of the meeting.

I had found a book with vignettes about average people who had done extraordinary things simply because they’d focused on finishing well. The book was Finish Strong by Dan Green, and I bought a copy for every member of the team. I also gave everyone a wristband that said, “Finish Strong.” I read some favorite quotes that struck me about the power of seeing something through to completion. I was passionate about this, and I wanted the other guys to catch the same vision for the season ahead.

Finish strong became one of our themes for the year. In the weight room we promised to make the last repetition the best of the day. As we watched film, we focused even harder during those last fifteen minutes. And we took it out onto the field too. At the end of games when we might have faltered in the past, we hung tough. The offense made big plays, the defense created turnovers, and the special teams came up with game-winning field goals or returns. It was not just a mantra but a way of life. We took that phrase seriously, and it paid off.

That year was the most intense off-season and preseason I’ve ever seen. Our defense’s mentality was We’ve got something to prove to everybody. Our offense saw their attitude and countered, You’re not pushing us around. It got competitive fast. And it was truly a case of iron sharpening iron. We made each other better. We were confident we had one of the best offenses in the league. Our defense had heard enough about them being the weak link on the team. Our new defensive coordinator, Gregg Williams, created a new culture among the players: they were going to dial up the pressure, play aggressively, and not apologize. That attitude and talent came together, and I was seeing things I’d never seen before from our defense.

When the season began, we were prepared. No other team could bring more pressure than we’d already seen in practice. We had a fast and brutal defense and a high-powered, light-’em-up offense. And to top it all off, we had a healthy dose of confidence and were gaining that swagger with each workday. We believed there was no team we couldn’t stop on defense and no team we couldn’t outscore on offense.

Before the season, in late June 2009, I took a USO trip to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Ever since I watched A Few Good Men, I’ve dreamed about visiting Guantanamo Bay. Gitmo’s reputation as a tough and rugged environment for the Marines always made it appealing to me. I thought this might be my last opportunity to visit the troops there since President Obama had announced they were shutting down the operation. I have the utmost respect for our military, and I believe they’re protecting us from enemies we can’t even imagine. Because they do what they do, you and I can safely do what we do every day. To be there with those guys I look up to so much was the ultimate experience.

One morning the Marines invited me to get up and do physical training with them. I was jacked—I felt like I was going to a playoff game. I got up at 5 a.m. and hustled out. It was still dark when we arrived at the meeting point, a place they called the “mosquito tree.” And for good reason. Not only were you fighting the thick, humid air, but you had to keep moving or else the mosquitoes would get you.

We got into formation and started running. I was following along in step, listening to the cadence, and there was a leader off to the side who would yell to help us stay in stride. We were running in three rows, with ten to twelve per row. He called off, “Left, right, left”—nothing complex—but the inflection in his voice and the rhythm of the footsteps washed over us. Somehow the chant kept us locked in and focused on what we were doing. He wasn’t just telling us what to do; he was leading us.

This was new to me. I was trying to listen to the words and repeat them back like the Marines did, but I was a little hesitant at first, not wanting to shout out the wrong thing. They were yelling fast, and I was having trouble understanding some of what I was hearing, especially as the run progressed and everyone started breathing a little harder. The others seemed to know every word by heart, and they weren’t shy about belting it out. But by the end of the training session, I had both the rhythm and the words, and I began shouting everything back to the leader like I was one of them.

As soon as I got the hang of the running and chanting, something clicked inside. I thought, This is awesome. I knew a part of that experience would stick with me, and there would be something for me to take back to my team. Sure enough, at one point in the run, they started a chant. Here’s what the leader called out:

“When I say, ‘One,’ you say, ‘Two.’ When I say, ‘Kill,’ you say, ‘For you.’

“One.”

“Two!”

“Kill.”

“For you!”

“When I say, ‘Three,’ you say, ‘Four.’ When I say, ‘Kill,’ you say, ‘Some more.’

“One.”

“Two!”

“Kill.”

“For you!”

“Three.”

“Four!”

“Kill.”

“Some more!”

And then it was “Five, six. Kill, for kicks! Seven, eight. Kill, it’s great! Nine, ten! Kill, again!” Each time he would go back to one and start over, so it took forever to get all the way through this chant. And you really had to pay attention closely if you wanted to keep up.

I’ll admit, the words of the chant are harsh, but they’re appropriate for these proud few. A Marine is not trained to keep the peace or direct traffic. A Marine is trained to kill and break things and mess up the plans of the enemy. The military doesn’t kill for kicks, of course—it’s just a chant. Of anybody on the planet, they know the seriousness and gravity of the mission. They live with the reality and the consequences of that responsibility every day.

As soon as I heard the chant, I knew it was something that would resonate with my teammates. But I figured the NFL wouldn’t approve of me urging players to go out and kill. So I changed kill to win. Here’s how our chant went during 2009:

“One, two! Win, for you. Three, four! Win, some more! Five, six! Win, for kicks! Seven, eight! Win, it’s great! Nine, ten! Win, again!”

The chant is a reminder that as we play, we’re striving to win not just for ourselves but for each other. And we’re not just winning for the team; we’re winning for the city and for our fans too. Every time we step onto the field, we’re playing to win. And the next week when we come back, we’re going to do it all over again. That was our philosophy for the season. Everybody would get hyped up before each game, and then we’d bring it in, and with every hand in the middle, I’d say, “Win on three. One, two, three. Win!”

There was a feeling of ownership and unity with the chant. We wanted to make other teams say, “What are they doing? Those Saints have something special, a unique bond.” The cadence became popular, even though most people didn’t understand what we were saying. It gave us an us-against-the-world mentality: if you’re part of our team, you’re part of a brotherhood that plays together and trusts each other and will fight to the end.

For our first game, we played at home against a new Detroit Lions team. They had lost all sixteen games the year before, but there were many new faces on the sideline now—and they were hungry for a fresh start. We were prepared to get their best performance and their best game.

We blazed out onto the field with reckless abandon, not caring who we were playing. We scored on the first two possessions and kept adding to the lead, finally winning 45–27. That day was a career high in touchdown passes for me. It was just one of those games. Everybody was given opportunities and everyone made plays. It also made me the first player in history to throw six touchdown passes on opening day.

It felt good for our team to light it up for forty-five points, especially since the first game is always a question mark in regard to the other team’s defense. No team shows much in the preseason, so it didn’t help to watch film. Plus, the Lions had a new coaching staff, so we couldn’t base much on past precedent. It was a good start to come out strong in the face of those unknowns.

But most significantly, we were starting to see what kind of a team we could be. You don’t get that in preseason; it comes when you unite and face a common opponent. It comes when you collectively take on the challenges that are thrown your way. In the first game we saw all the weapons we possessed. We felt like we could step onto the field and score anytime we wanted.

The second game of the season was big because Philadelphia had just smoked Carolina, the winner of our division in 2008. Philadelphia had manhandled the Panthers on the road, and now we were headed to their territory. After the way they beat the daylights out of our rival, the Eagles were arguably the favorites in the NFC at that point. Lincoln Financial Field is traditionally a tough venue, and we knew the crowd would be a big factor in the game. It was going to be loud. We had to be ready for a sixteen-round championship bout.

We had built up a little history with Philly recently, this being the fourth time we had faced them in as many years. There had been some tough battles between the two teams, and every game had been decided in the fourth quarter. We knew we’d have to be at the top of our game offensively, and our key mind-set was to simply take care of the football. That’s always the case, but it was especially important in that game since their defense thrives on turnovers. We needed to take it one drive at a time, one series at a time. We had to handle their pass rush. And most of all, we had to play with confidence and be explosive and take advantage of big plays whenever we could.

We methodically worked the ball on the first drive, and I hit Marques Colston for a fifteen-yard score. Their quarterback Kevin Kolb answered with a seventy-one-yard touchdown pass to DeSean Jackson to tie it up. (Kolb was starting that game because Donovan McNabb was out with a rib injury.) The first half we kept going back and forth like that. Both teams scored points in the last two minutes of the second quarter, and we went into halftime up 17–13. We’d played pretty well, but not great. We knew we could do better.

In the third quarter we opened up on them and scored quickly. We had to kick off to begin the second half, but our special teams forced a fumble and gave us a short field for a quick touchdown. Two plays later, we intercepted a pass and our offense came in and scored again. Later, Reggie Bush had a nineteen-yard touchdown run. Darren Sharper ran an interception ninety-seven yards for a touchdown. We were putting points on the scoreboard at will.

Toward the end of the game we were deep in our territory on our half yard line. It was fourth down, and we were up 41–20. There was really no way Philadelphia could come back unless we did something stupid. But statistically a team that punts out of their own end zone usually gets scored on quickly.

I went over to the sideline and said to Sean, “Coach, let’s take a safety. We don’t want to kick out of our own end zone.”

Joe Vitt, our assistant head coach, has been around the league for thirty-one years, and he’s Sean’s trusted adviser. Joe headed over, and the three of us talked. We agreed that taking a safety was the smart thing to do, so I took the snap, ran along the back of the end zone, and tossed the ball out-of-bounds. We gave up two points but gained thirty yards of field position, and now there was no way they could block our kick and score quickly. I appreciated Sean’s willingness to accept my input on plays and situations like this one. I just know that if I do recommend something, I had better make it work. Sean and I communicate very well together, and I would love it if I never had to play for any other coach.

We felt really good about the way we’d played on both sides of the ball. Only two games into the season, we had already scored ninety-three points. If we kept that up, chances were we were going to win a few games. But that wasn’t our focus now. We weren’t thinking about the Super Bowl. We just kept marching ahead to the next Sunday.

The third game we beat Buffalo by twenty points. In the fourth week we won 24–10 against the Jets, who had come onto the field unbeaten. Even so, I didn’t feel like we’d even scratched the surface of our potential. I also knew we hadn’t really faced adversity yet. We’d won every game up to that point by a double-digit spread, and we hadn’t been forced to come up with a big defensive stop at the end of a game or run a two-minute drive and kick a last-minute field goal. We had finished the games we’d been in, but we hadn’t come close to losing. What would happen when we did?