Home Team (28 page)

There were all these people I saw every day—people I’d have invited to my wedding if I had known them then—all looking like they’d just been delivered to somewhere they never imagined they’d be. The head trainer, Scottie Patton. The equipment guy.

There was one little orange cooler of Michelob Ultra in the locker room. Maybe there were thirty-five beers in there. I showered, dumped the sticky sweatshirt and put on my suit. Finally it was time to make our way to the hotel, where I knew we had a great victory party waiting for us. Someone grabbed the little cooler. I had the trophy. We headed outside to the parking lot. Our four usual buses were ready to go.

As always, I got on Bus One. I was in what would be seat 1A, first row by the window. Joe Vitt sat next to me. Brees was right behind us. Greg McMahon, Joe Lombardi, the other coaches and players—all of them sat where they always did. Bus Two had its group, Bus Three and so on.

That little orange cooler was in the aisle. The beers were passed from row to row. You could hear the caps twisting off the bottles. I think I smelled cigar smoke coming from the back. Almost immediately, the bus was whizzing down the highway toward the Intercontinental.

It got quiet in there. It felt almost like that scene in
The Shawshank Redemption
in which the prisoners are all together for what they are certain is the very last time. It’s not so different for a football team that has just won the Super Bowl.

When you’re at the Super Bowl, you get the presidential-level police escort. The traffic was pushed entirely over to the right-hand side of the road. The cars were totally stopped as we passed. We were the only traffic.

It was just me and my guys after winning the Super Bowl, heading back to our hotel.

The bus ride was almost silent. Guys were talking, but softly. We had our beers. We had our victory. We had one another. We had nothing to prove and nowhere unpleasant to go.

I had no film to grade. No injury reports to review. No game plan to tease out for next Sunday. We had set a goal for ourselves, and we had reached it together. We had been lifted by our city, and we had lifted it too. What else could anybody want?

As we rode, the people in the stopped cars seemed to understand all of this. At least I think they did. They didn’t seem to mind at all. We had been the tragic Saints from tragic New Orleans, but neither of us was tragic anymore.

Horns were blowing. There were sirens in the distance. Some people were leaning from their car windows to get a better view. Others got out entirely. A few were standing on their trunks or their hoods.

I can’t prove this, but I’ll bet I’m right. Seventy-five percent of those people were Saints fans. South Florida had become part of Saints Country. Our story seemed to have captivated people everywhere. They were screaming. They were clapping. They were waving at us.

As we rolled along, Joe Vitt looked over at me in my seat. We started listing all the thing we didn’t have to do.

“No depth charts,” he said.

“No injury reports,” I followed.

There was only one thing we both agreed we didn’t like: This bus was moving much too quickly. This ride wouldn’t last nearly long enough.

My mind went back to the night we took the long way home from Dallas after beating the Cowboys. I wondered if we still had time to arrange something like that.

“This is our reward,” Vitt said. “This fuckin’ ride.”

“I know what you mean,” I told him. “I wish we were sitting in traffic like those other people. This ride can’t possibly last long enough. I could go through the rest of the night.”

IT WAS ELEVEN FORTY-FIVE
by the time we got back to the Intercontinental. Was there any doubt we were going to celebrate?

Mr. Benson paid for one hell of a party. Better Than Ezra played. Kenny Chesney came on at three in the morning. The liquor flowed. Champagne was finally poured. Even after a very tough football game, players found the energy to dance. There was lots of hugging and lots of “I love you, man.” Basically, we were up all night.

And why not? There was no next game to worry about. And God knows, we’d waited long enough for this. Four years since I had gotten to New Orleans—forty-two years, five months and eighteen days since John Gilliam’s opening run. Not that anyone was counting. No, it wasn’t easy. And yes, we got it done. In the days to come, the players and coaches would be scattered everywhere. No one could say for certain how many of them would be back the following year. That’s just the reality of professional sports today. No team is forever. Each year is a whole new bet. As we toasted the team, the city and ourselves, we knew we still had some celebrating in front of us. No one seemed eager to call it an early night.

About five fifteen on Monday morning, just as the February sun was rising over the Atlantic Ocean, the party was finally winding down. The players and the coaches wandered into the morning for a long, well-deserved rest. Which was nice for them, I’m sure. I wasn’t so lucky. Long before the game was played, the NFL had scheduled an eight thirty a.m. press conference so the national media could question the winning Super Bowl coach. Did I mention this press conference was scheduled for eight thirty a.m.? The idea, I guess, was to have the Q&A before the media all left town.

And that would have been bad enough had the press conference been held in our hotel. Unfortunately, it was forty minutes away in Fort Lauderdale.

The Lombardi Trophy was in the bed beside me. I was totally dead asleep when Mike Ornstein was banging on my door at seven sharp. I’d been asleep an hour and forty minutes, and I’d had a couple cocktails and some Amstel Light. OK, more than a couple.

As I’d said good night, I’d told Ornstein, “I’ll pay the fine. No way am I making that press conference. There’s only so much I can do.”

“Look,” Ornstein said. “For forty-four years, the head coach has always been there. You’re not gonna be the first one to miss it.”

That being said, I clearly was not in good enough shape to be addressing 250 members of the national media the morning after the Super Bowl.

So with Ornstein banging on the door, I pulled myself out of bed and threw some water on my face. He led me to the Town Car for the ride to Lauderdale. It was Mickey Loomis, Greg Bensel, Mike Ornstein, Drew Brees and me. They were nervous as hell putting me up on the podium—and for good reason. But I was the head coach of the winning Super Bowl team. So really, what choice did they have?

So I got up there slowly. I calmly delivered the message I had. I answered the questions. I guess that’s where I said those things about sleeping with the trophy and maybe drooling on it. What can I say? I’m lucky I could string a sentence together at all.

I got back in the Town Car and fell asleep on the ride back to the hotel.

The next thing I remember, I was on the team charter flying home. That was Monday. It’s all a bit of a blur. Have you ever seen the movie
The Hangover
, where the guy is asking, “How did this lion get here? . . . Where did my tooth go? . . . Isn’t that Mike Tyson?” That was Monday for me.

There were twenty thousand people waiting for us outside the airport in New Orleans. I heard when the Colts landed in Indianapolis, they were met by eleven die-hard fans. God bless ’em. I can’t prove this, but I’m convinced: We’d have gotten the same twenty thousand even if we’d lost. That might not happen in any other city—fans turning out to greet a losing team. But I’ll bet it would have happened in New Orleans this time. There was that much feeling in the air.

We made our way through the crowd and drove home. Beth and the kids were there already. The family charter had left an hour before the team charter did. We all took a deep breath and finally collapsed.

Tuesday morning, we drove downtown for the parade. The Mardi Gras season had already started. The parades had been rolling since Friday night. The city already had that Mardi Gras buzz. The ladders and the viewing stands were already lining the sidewalks. The Mardi Gras Indians were putting the finishing touches on their costumes. The marching clubs were already plotting their routes. Fat Tuesday was one week away.

With the Saints winning the Super Bowl and the usual pre-Lenten craziness, this was going to be a Mardi Gras like New Orleans had never seen.

There are some things this city does amazingly well. New Orleans can feed you. New Orleans can house you. New Orleans can show you a good time. And New Orleans knows how to put on a parade. No one in the world does a parade like New Orleans. It’s a whole different thing here. That’s what the people of New Orleans do. Once you’ve been to a Mardi Gras parade, you are ruined for parades anywhere else.

At the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade in New York City or the Tournament of Roses Parade in Pasadena, you stand and wave at what’s passing, and that’s about it. In New Orleans, you dance, you sing, you wear a costume—you make your own fun.

I can’t imagine a better way to celebrate a Super Bowl victory or a city bouncing back.

The Mardi Gras krewes usually spend a full year organizing a parade, beginning immediately after the previous Mardi Gras. We had almost two days, from Sunday night until Tuesday afternoon. Before the game was played, there had been some discussion about a post-Super Bowl parade, win or lose, either way. Again, only in New Orleans.

But now the need for a celebration was pressing and real. We wouldn’t just be toasting a football victory. This was so much more than that. This was the way we’d wanted it. Not just reaching the Super Bowl. Not just playing respectably. Winning the damn game. Winning it decisively. And then parading in victory through the streets of New Orleans.

The whole city came together to pull this off.

We borrowed floats from some of the major krewes. They don’t normally work together, but here they all were: Endymion, Bacchus, Rex, Zulu, Alla, Caesar, Tucks, Muses, Orpheus and Babylon. None of them had to be asked twice. We reached out to some of the very best marching bands. Budweiser sent the Clydesdales. Two F-18 Hornets from the Belle Chasse Naval Air Station offered air support. I don’t think anybody said no to us. Blaine and Barry Kern from Mardi Gras World coordinated a thousand details. This wasn’t a bale of hay on a flatbed truck. This was a giant Mardi Gras extravaganza. The police mapped out a special route for us. We thought it was only right we started at the Superdome. And we headed off—Beth, Meghan, Connor and I, joined by the players and the coaches, the owner and staff—for the biggest and best parade New Orleans had ever experienced.

The players and the coaches were as giddy as I’d ever seen them. Ornstein was bouncing up and down. We’d spent four years together, some of us, and this really was what we had been working toward. This team. This victory. This city. And these were the people I most wanted to share it with.

To be on this float, heading off on this parade, held in the warm embrace of a hurt and recovering city, riding with these people I love the most—this is where I run out of words.

That feeling? It’s truly indescribable.

As we waited to roll out of the Superdome, we’d forgotten something—something we hadn’t forgotten since we moved from Dallas to New Orleans and started this journey we’d been on.

We were starving. We’d actually forgotten to eat. I had no idea what we would find along the route.

But this is New Orleans. These are the Saints. Any surprise is always possible.

This time it came from Jeremy Shockey. It was just a little thing. But the little things add up.

Shockey had ordered fifteen pizzas, one for every float. And right before we rolled out, the pizza delivery girl passed one of those pizzas up to our float.

I just looked at my kids and my wife and thought, “We really won, didn’t we? Here we are. This team, this city and this family. We’re getting ready to go on this parade. We’re eating slices of pizza. Hundreds of thousands of people are celebrating with us.

“You know, it doesn’t get any better than this.”

Sean Payton (HEAD COACH)
John Bonamego (SPECIAL TEAMS COORDINATOR)
Gary Gibbs (DEFENSIVE COORDINATOR)
Doug Marrone (OFFENSIVE COORDINATOR/OFFENSIVE LINE)
Joe Vitt (ASSISTANT HEAD COACH/LINEBACKERS)
George Henshaw (SENIOR OFFENSIVE ASSISTANT/RUNNING BACKS)
Dennis Allen (ASSISTANT DEFENSIVE LINE)
Adam Bailey (ASSISTANT STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING)
Pete Carmichael (QUARTERBACKS)
Dan Dalrymple (HEAD STRENGTH AND CONDITIONING)
Tom Hayes (DEFENSIVE BACKS)
Marion Hobby (DEFENSIVE LINE)
Curtis Johnson (WIDE RECEIVERS)
Terry Malone (TIGHT ENDS)
Greg McMahon (ASSISTANT SPECIAL TEAMS)
John Morton (OFFENSIVE ASSISTANT/PASSING GAME)
Tony Oden (DEFENSIVE ASSISTANT/SECONDARY)
Joe Alley (COACHING ASSISTANT)
Josh Constant (COACHING ASSISTANT)
Carter Sheridan (COACHING ASSISTANT)
Adam Zimmer (COACHING ASSISTANT)

Drew Brees (QUARTERBACK)
Jammal Brown (TACKLE)
Josh Bullocks (SAFETY)
Reggie Bush (RUNNING BACK)
Mark Campbell (RIGHT END)
John Carney (KICKER)
Danny Clark (LINEBACKER)
Marques Colston (WIDE RECEIVER)
Ernie Conwell (TIGHT END)
Terrance Copper (WIDE RECEIVER)
Jason Craft (CORNERBACK)
Curtis Deloatch (CORNERBACK)
Jahri Evans (GUARD)
Jeff Faine (CENTER)
Alfred Fincher (LINEBACKER)
Scott Fujita (LINEBACKER)
Steve Gleason (SAFETY)
Jonathan Goodwin (CENTER)
Charles Grant (DEFENSIVE END)
DeJuan Groce (CORNERBACK)
Roman Harper (SAFETY)
Michael Haynes (DEFENSIVE END)
Devery Henderson (WIDE RECEIVER)
Montrae Holland (GUARD)
Joe Horn (WIDE RECEIVER)
Kevin Houser (LONG SNAPPER)
Jamal Jones (WIDE RECEIVER)
Keith Joseph (RUNNING BACK)
Mike Karney (FULLBACK)
Antwan Lake (DEFENSIVE TACKLE)
Nate Lawrie (TIGHT END)
Rodney Leisle (DEFENSIVE TACKLE)
Jamie Martin (QUARTERBACK)
Deuce McAllister (RUNNING BACK)
Mike McKenzie (CORNERBACK)
Terrence Melton (LINEBACKER)
Lance Moore (WIDE RECEIVER)
Jamar Nesbit (GUARD)
Rob Ninkovich (DEFENSIVE END)
Rob Petitti (TACKLE)
Bryan Scott (SAFETY)
Scott Shanle (LINEBACKER)
Mark Simoneau (LINEBACKER)
Will Smith (DEFENSIVE END)
Aaron Stecker (RUNNING BACK)
Jon Stinchcomb (TACKLE)
Omar Stoutmire (SAFETY)
Zach Strief (TACKLE)
Fred Thomas (CORNERBACK)
Hollis Thomas (DEFENSIVE TACKLE)
Brian Young (DEFENSIVE TACKLE)