by Jeff Duncan
If Brees’ maniacal competitiveness wasn’t evident to Brunell after the home run derby, it was hammered home a few months later on a bowfishing trip to Port Sulphur, Louisiana. The informal fishing contest between Saints players began at 8:00 pm and stretched well into the next morning. As Brunell recalled, all of the boats had reported to the dock and weighed their catches with the guides by about 2:30 am. Yet, one boat remained on the water, more than an hour after the others had returned to the dock. Finally, sometime in the wee hours before dawn, it came in.
“We’re all just sitting there waiting,” Brunell said. “We’re nasty, disgusting, and we just want to go home. But to a man, we all knew why his boat was the last one to come in. And sure, enough, he had the most fish. He’s even competitive in bowfishing. That’s Drew Brees.”
Brees has ascended to the elite ranks of NFL quarterbacks for many reasons, from his underrated all-around athletic ability to his versatile skill set to his legendary work ethic. But those who know Brees best say his extraordinary competitiveness is what sets him apart, the single trait that has driven him from an under-recruited prep player to the highest level of his sport. In a league of extraordinarily competitive men, Brees’ almost obsessive competitiveness stands out.
The Saints knew Brees was competitive when they signed him in 2006. They were counting on it to fuel his rehab from shoulder surgery. But no one knew just how competitive he was until they got him in the building. And it became apparent very quickly that they were dealing with a different animal.
Nearly everyone who has spent any length of time with Brees over the years has a story about his legendary competitive streak. Brees grew up in an athletic family and competed in sports at an early age alongside his brother, Reid. But Brees doesn’t limit his competition to organized sports. He’ll compete in just about anything, from ping-pong to darts to seed spitting to rock skipping to skeet shooting. Anything to stoke his competitive juices.
His roommate at Purdue, Jason Loerzel, still shakes his head at the sleepless nights he endured at the teammates’ on-campus apartment because of Brees’ marathon late-night electronic dart games. Chase Daniel said when he played for the Saints from 2009 to 2012 Brees would create games like “pencil football” in the quarterback meeting room and “football golf” on the practice field to stoke the fire. McCown remembers seeing Brees spend 20 minutes in the weight room one day trying to toss a physio ball and land it on the weight rack.
“He wouldn’t leave until he did it,” McCown said.
At times, Brees’ competitiveness can border on obsessiveness—so much so that friends and teammates have learned that letting him win is sometimes better than beating him.
Former NFL quarterback Carson Palmer told the Los Angeles Times he and Brees would train together near their San Diego homes each offseason, and Brees would somehow turn the workouts into a competition.
“He was so over-the-top competitive,” Palmer said. “We would jog from drill to drill, and he would have to be first. After a while it was, ‘All right, dude, just go.’ He couldn’t turn it off. We would finish every workout with little agility games like catching cards. You’d throw playing cards in the air and catch them with one hand…. Your mind is exhausted, your body’s exhausted, and Drew just can’t turn it off. As a peer and a competitor, I was in awe. But his competitiveness got to the point where it can be annoying.”
During bowfishing trips, Loerzel said he would surreptitiously gesture to his fishing guide to steer the boat toward fish in Brees’ direction so he could shoot the most fish in their angling derbies.
“I would give a nod for him to turn the boat so Drew can shoot the fish because if we didn’t we were going to be out there all night until he got the most,” Loerzel said. “We joke with him about it, but it’s real.”
Over the years, Brees even found a way to multi-compete. During practices, while trying to move the ball against the defense, he would simultaneously compete with fellow quarterbacks. The mini-competition assigned point values to various aspects of quarterback play. Players received points for throwing a touchdown pass, completing a pass after a scramble, checking down to the proper receiver, or making the right read. Points were deducted for interceptions, inaccurate reads, etc. As the senior member of the group, Brees reigned as judge, jury, and arbiter of the daily tally. He was even known to tweak the scorekeeping criteria when necessary.
One day during organized team activities in the spring, McCown said Brees introduced a bonus score: one point for a completion on a throw in the flat. The other quarterbacks readily agreed. Later, McCown noticed the script for that practice. Brees’ series featured numerous plays in which the primary receiver ran a flat route.
“He’s a manipulator,” McCown said with a smirk.
Brees’ competitive drive fits like a glove with Payton. Saints scouts grade personnel for their competitiveness in the evaluation process. Payton also fosters a culture of competition in daily workouts, even joining the players in the informal post-practice contests.
“There is a high value on [competitiveness] I think, just as there is on intelligence,” Payton said. “I think it is extremely important. And it is also on us to create those environments. It is okay to have winners and losers.”
Brees, as you would imagine, rarely loses. Payton kidded that the few times he’s managed to defeat his quarterback involved competitions “like throwing a ping-pong ball in a fish bowl.”
Loerzel recalled Brees missing a short putt on the golf course and replaying the putt over and over until he finally made it, much to the dismay of the foursome behind them. Jamie Martin said Brees once missed a single pass in a two-hour practice and then spent 15 minutes after practice re-running the same route with receivers until he perfected the throw.
“That stuff just eats him up,” Martin said. “It’s a little thing that may or may not matter, but he’s never satisfied with shrugging things off. It’s that little edge that drives him.”
Michael Jordan was so ruthlessly competitive he reportedly belittled teammates and even made then-teenager Kwame Brown cry during practice. He rarely showed mercy when vanquishing fellow competitors. Brees always manages to keep the competitions light-hearted. He never takes it too far.
Of course, that doesn’t mean he takes losing well. At the home run derby competition before the 2013 Ben Grubbs celebrity softball game at Zephyr Field, a group of reporters approached Brees for interviews. Brees said he planned to talk after the home run contest. When McCown upset Brees in the derby after three tiebreaker rounds, everything changed. One of the most accessible and media-friendly superstars in sports was nowhere to be found by reporters afterward.
“He was definitely upset about it, no question,” McCown said.
A year later, to no one’s surprise, Brees reclaimed the home run derby title. The trophies for each derby were displayed on top of the quarterbacks’ lockers at the Saints facility. Brees’ trophy was notably—and not accidentally—one inch taller than McCown’s.
“He wants to be the best at whatever he does,” McCown said. “That’s what makes him great. That’s what makes him Drew.”
McCown was confident he finally had Brees where he wanted him during Saints training camp in 2014, when the quarterback group visited the skeet shooting range at The Greenbrier resort in Sulphur Springs, West Virginia. An avid outdoorsman who grew up duck and deer hunting in east Texas, McCown owned a set of shotguns, and he showed off his deadeye, hitting 33 of 50 sporting clays, well ahead of fellow Saints quarterbacks Logan Kilgore and Ryan Griffin. But it still wasn’t enough to beat Brees, who hit 41 of 50 targets.
“There’s nothing that Drew Brees could do that would surprise me,” said LSU offensive coordinator Cam Cameron, who served in the same capacity with the San Diego Chargers for four of Brees’ five seasons.
Cameron recalled a meeting he had with Brees after the Chargers’ grim
2003 season in which the quarterback and coach discussed plans for the approaching offseason. The Chargers had just finished 4–12—tied for the worst in the league—and Brees had lost his starting job to 41-year-old Doug Flutie. Brees told Cameron that he and Brittany were making plans to celebrate their first wedding anniversary in the second week of February.
“I said, ‘How did you pick that [wedding] day?” Cameron said. “And he said, ‘Well, the Super Bowl is this date and the Pro Bowl is this date, and I knew I couldn’t do it those dates.”
Cameron chuckled privately at Brees’ ambition. The Chargers hadn’t had a Pro Bowl quarterback in 18 years. They’d made the playoffs only seven times since the league merger in 1970.
The next year, the Chargers went 12–4, won the AFC West Division title, and advanced to the playoffs for the first time in eight years. And a few weeks later, on February 8, 2005, Brees played in his first Pro Bowl.
“That kind of tells you about Drew Brees,” Cameron said.
20. The Fire and Fury of Sunday Sean
If there’s a single trait that Sean Payton and Drew Brees share more than others, it is their maniacal competitiveness. Above everything else, their shared drive to win creates a foundation for their relationship, a commonality that harbors deep mutual respect. This competitive drive fuels their long work weeks during the season and burns throughout the offseason as they prepare for another season.
Yet they display this competitiveness in vastly different ways, especially during games. Brees is focused but calm on game days. As the on-field leader of the team, he consciously maintains a poker face and positive body language during games. By Brees’ demeanor and expression, it’s difficult to tell whether the Saints are leading or trailing by three touchdowns against an opponent. The idea is to not give the opponent any mental edge and instill confidence in the Saints sideline.
“The greatest players in all sports make everyone around them better players,” Strief said. “What you notice about Drew when you’re in the huddle with him in the biggest moment of the game, he is the exact same in that moment as he is in the walk-through in the afternoon before a game in the indoor practice facility. That breeds confidence in the situation. His consistency puts everybody at ease in the biggest moments in games.”
Brees compares playing quarterback to captaining a ship. The captain must communicate the plan and instill confidence in his staff. To do that, he must check his emotions and remain poised and calm.
“I find that I’m best when I can be calm, composed, and then I can think very clearly,” he said. “There’s a difference between being on the sideline versus being in the huddle. In the huddle, you’re driving a ship. You’ve got to be able to communicate with everybody. You’ve got to get everybody on the same page. You’ve got to get everybody up to the ball. You’ve got to get it all orchestrated. And then make that quick split-second decision. So I find that there’s probably a little bit more calm and poise that has to take place there than on the sideline.”
Payton, on the other hand, is often a cauldron of emotions during games. He prowls the sideline with a noticeable intensity. And if things aren’t going well, his wrath spares no one. Players. Coaches. Opponents. Officials. Over the years, TV cameras have caught Payton giving an earful to various Saints players and assistant coaches, most notably running back Mark Ingram and former defensive coordinator Rob Ryan. Even innocent bystanders simply trying to do their jobs aren’t immune. Members of the chain gang have felt Payton’s icy stare if they infringe on his sideline coaching turf. Saints media relations executives have manned the sidelines for years to monitor members of the network broadcast crew and proactively prevent run-ins.
“It’s just who I am on game day,” Payton said unapologetically. “It’s what’s natural and comfortable for me. That’s me. Pick a player or coach and they’ve heard it from me. That’s just me being fired up. Yeah, I get upset when there are 12 guys on the field. That doesn’t mean I’m looking for another defensive coach. I’m going to be more upset again. There’s going to be more [video] clips of it.”
Payton’s game-day behavior is strikingly different from his demeanor anywhere else. During the week of a game, he employs a professorial demeanor at practice and during meetings. Payton has long compared coaching to teaching. In his mind, great coaches are inherently great communicators and instructors. With that in mind, he rarely raises his voice at practice and spends much of his time calmly instructing players on individual techniques and responsibilities. But on game days a transformation occurs: Professor Payton becomes Sunday Sean, a gum-chomping, sideline-pacing, hell-raising, football-coaching firebrand. Payton’s animated sideline antics have become infamous around the league and legendary among his own players and coaches. They refer to Payton’s game-day alter ego as Sunday Sean and Game-Day Sean. In fact, his sideline demeanor is so notorious it has become part of the informal orientation that veteran players give to newcomers and rookies when they join the club.
“Sean’s definitely a different guy on Sundays,” defensive tackle Sheldon Rankins said. “On Sunday, he’s got his Juicy Fruit, and he’s locked in.”
Payton’s sideline attacks are nondiscriminatory. Errors of omission and errors of commission from his players are equally egregious in his mind. Drop a ball. Jump offside. Fail to account for the opponent’s best player in pass protection. Whatever. A failure to execute mentally or physically is going to earn a sideline rebuke from Payton. When the game is on the line, any person in his way will face his fire. Players say they see his pursed-lipped, steely-eyed glare in their sleep.
“If things don’t go right on the field, you’re going to hear about it, you’re going to feel his eyeballs piercing through you,” former Saints offensive lineman Jermon Bushrod said. “You can feel him coming after you.”
Like Pavlov’s dogs, Saints players have been conditioned over the years to avoid Payton on the sideline after committing a mental error or mistake during a game. They’ll take serpentine paths to the sideline to skirt him and almost always avoid eye contact with him when they reach the bench.
“I’ve seen [former star receiver Marques] Colston run almost around to the visitor’s bench to get back to our sideline to avoid Sean,” Saints wide receivers coach Curtis Johnson said of the former star receiver.
But Payton has wisened to these tactics. He might have to wait until after completing a series as the offensive play-caller, but he eventually finds time to get his point across and air his grievance. And, players say, he never forgets a transgression.
“Oh, he’s coming,” veteran receiver Ted Ginn Jr. said. “You might dodge him that first time, but he’s going to catch you again. It’s not like you’re not going to hear it.”
Former tackle Jon Stinchcomb remembers being assessed a holding penalty during a game against Tampa Bay and feeling Payton’s wrath from the sideline.
“You could see the glare on his face from midfield,” Stinchcomb said. “He chewed me and up down when I got to the sideline. You just have to go and eat it. There’s no getting around it.”
Strief recalled Payton stomping up to him after he gave up a particularly bad hit against an opponent one year.
“He came to the sideline and asked me, ‘Is this too big for you? As in, is playing in the NFL [too big for you]?” Strief said. “If you’ve been here long enough, it’s happened to all of us.”
Terron Armstead remembered a mistake he made during his rookie season, just months removed from a stellar career at Arkansas–Pine Bluff. Payton tore into Armstead before he could reach the sideline.
“I’d never had anyone talk to me like that before in my life,” Armstead said. “I was wondering what I got myself into.”
Taysom Hill said Payton once jumped him during a game for failing to make the proper decision on a read-option run. He kept the ball instead of handing it off to Kamara, and Payton let him know about it on the
sideline. Later in the game, Payton sent in another read-option run to Hill and reminded him in the headset “to just give it” to Kamara. But when Hill took the snap, the correct read was to keep the ball and he did, scoring a touchdown on the run.
“He told the coaches in the headset, ‘Taysom’s got guts,’” Hill said. “Or something a little more colorful than that.”
Payton’s theatrics aren’t limited to his own team. He used to regularly exchange trash talk with former Carolina Panthers receiver Steve Smith during the team’s biannual NFC South battles. In the 2017 season, Payton yelled demonstratively across the field at Tampa Bay Buccaneers coach Dirk Koetter during a game at the Superdome after Bucs quarterback Jameis Winston instigated a fight between Mike Evans and Marshon Lattimore. A few weeks later, Payton brandished the choke sign at Devonta Freeman after a carry by the Falcons running back, a gesture that earned Payton a $10,000 fine from the league. Payton also prematurely trolled Vikings fans by performing the Skol clap on the sidelines during the final minutes of the Saints’ 2018 NFC divisional playoff game at U.S. Bank Stadium.
This fiery behavior is a distinguishing characteristic of Payton’s coaching. Many of the NFL’s great offensive minds have been stoic, cerebral men, and they coached that way. Tom Landry. Joe Gibbs. Mike Holmgren. Andy Reid. You’d never see one of them going after a player or coach on the sidelines.
“It’s kind of a running joke as to the ‘Game-Day Sean’ demeanor,” Brees said. “He can be so calm, cool, composed at practice, in the meeting room, that kind of thing. And then game day rolls around…. Do not get on his bad side. He’s intense. He’s fiery, ultra-, ultra-competitive.”
Over the years, various Saints coaches have been assigned get-back duty during games. The unenviable task in recent years fell on the shoulders of coaching assistant Kevin Petry and strength and conditioning coaches Dan Dalrymple, Charles Byrd, and Rob Wenning. In the early days, Saints wide receiver coach Curtis “C.J.” Johnson drew the short straw. He was assigned get-back coach duty in the 2006 NFC Championship against the Bears in Chicago.
