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The "Official" Super Bowl Game Thread


Chief Dick
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Good stuff.

 

I smell a nice rivalry cooking.

 

On Friday night, the Saints' staff at the combine gathered in a private room at St. Elmo Steakhouse, an 108-year-old Indy landmark, for a final celebratory nod to the Super Bowl win over the Colts. This is a group that likes its wine, and likes to have fun.

 

At the restaurant, word passed that Dallas owner Jerry Jones would have his Dallas group in this exact room Saturday night for a team dinner. Jones had even phoned ahead, according to a waiter, to make sure a magnum of a wine he loved, Caymus Special Selection cabernet sauvignon, was ready to be served at dinner.

 

Sean Payton told the waiter he'd like to have that wine, too. The waiter told him: Sorry, sir. We have only one bottle left, and it's reserved for Mr. Jones.

 

Payton said he'd like to have the bottle nonetheless. I assume there was much angst on the part of the wait staff at that point. My God! Who do we piss off? One of the most powerful owners in the NFL, or the coach who's the toast of the NFL, the coach who just won the Super Bowl?

 

Here came the bottle of Caymus Special Selection, and the Saints' party drained it.

 

But drinking Jones' wine wasn't enough. Payton gave the waiter some instructions, took out his pen ... and, well, the Cowboys party found at the middle of their table the next evening an empty magnum of Caymus Special Selection cabernet sauvignon, with these words hand-written on the fancy label:

 

WHO DAT!

World Champions XLIV

Sean Payton

 

That's the kind of thing Jones will get a big laugh out of. And remember.

 

ETA: And yes, I remember who won the Dallas game this year. Hopefully next year we'll have Ellis, Shockey, Greer, and 1/2 a Bush back for that rematch (he got hurt midway thru the game). That and do a much better job containing Ware who was a beast.

Edited by myhousekey
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Good stuff.

 

 

 

ETA: And yes, I remember who won the Dallas game this year. Hopefully next year we'll have Ellis, Shockey, Greer, and 1/2 a Bush back for that rematch (he got hurt midway thru the game). That and do a much better job containing Ware who was a beast.

Geez... Caymus is one of the brands that I sell. It must be nice to drop that kind of money on a magnum of it... Yikes.

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And I thought I couldn't thank Tracy Porter enough already...

 

Five days before he came up with the biggest interception in New Orleans Saints history, cornerback Tracy Porter came through for his coach in a completely different way.

 

Porter was the last player to arrive at Sun Life Stadium for the Super Bowl Media Day on Tuesday morning - one of five players who showed up late after having a relaxed curfew Monday night.

And though Coach Sean Payton was agitated, he was mostly excited, because this was exactly the kind of "crisis" he wanted to help him set the tone for the week.

 

Payton chronicled his classic reaction and motivational speech in his upcoming book, "Home Team: Coaching the Saints and New Orleans Back to Life." The book, which includes several behind-the-scenes anecdotes from Payton's trepidation in coming to New Orleans to his team's rise to the Super Bowl championship, is scheduled to be released in late June.

 

Payton, who co-wrote the book with author Ellis Henican, said he didn't have any problem with players going out on Monday night since there was no practice scheduled for Tuesday.

 

"I'm not naive," the coach wrote. "If I were a player, that's the night I'd be going out. But I'd damn sure make the Tuesday morning bus."

 

Five players apparently didn't - Porter, safeties Roman Harper and Usama Young, defensive end Bobby McCray and offensive tackle Jermon Bushrod.

 

While team officials and position coaches frantically tried to hunt them down and team and league public relations officials frantically tried to get Payton and his players up to the podiums at the scheduled time, Payton recognized a golden opportunity.

 

"What the players had done really wasn't that big a deal," he wrote. "Monday was the night they were supposed to go drinking. Tuesday was just Media Day. It was all unimportant. Who cares what time Media Day activities are supposed to begin? Believe me, the media will wait. And one by one, the five missing players begin to show up. This is going to be a teaching moment. Teaching by confrontation. ...

 

"We were going to have a little emergency meeting just as soon as the last straggler arrived. It was Tracy Porter. Finally he appeared in the locker room. All the doors were closed. I began to speak.

 

"'You guys,'" I said, starting softly. "'You guys remind me of a team that's just happy to be here. ... There's a lot of things I don't do well. But I have very good intuition. It'd gotten me to this point in my career. Part of that is developed. Part of it's innate. But I can, and I do, pay attention. And I have a good sense of what is going on here. ... My intuition tells me you guys are in for a rude awakening this coming weekend. I can smell an ass kickin' on the way. I can smell a team that looks like they're just happy to be in the Super Bowl. You guys reek of that team.'"

 

Payton said he didn't shout, but his comments were personal and direct, and he called out a few players by name - including the three defensive backs who were late.

 

"'Do you honestly think (Indianapolis Colts receiver) Pierre Garcon and (expletive) Dallas Clark and these other guys from the Colts are out to the wee hours?'" Payton recalled saying. "'Late for Media Day? You're late. You're (expletive) clueless. You got no idea.'"

 

The Saints were now 30 minutes late for their scheduled interview time - with hundreds of reporters assuming there was a delay because the weather had pushed the interviews inside. But Payton said he didn't care. His speech went on to include assistant coaches and the overall "happy to be here" attitude he sensed and "giddiness" he had seen on the bus rides and in the hotel lobby.

"'Let me know if you're gonna party all week, because I'll go drink red wine at the Prime, too,'"

 

Payton recalled saying. "'We're not gonna get vested in a game plan if this is the way we're gonna go. Ah, hell, I'll go get (expletive)-up with the rest of you. Is that what we're here for?'"

 

Payton then ended his rant by passing on a message from his mentor and current Miami Dolphins president Parcells, who had watched the team practice Monday but declined an invitation to speak with the Saints since he is currently working for another team.

 

"Bill's message wasn't something he dreamed up alone," Payton wrote. "It dates back decades before him. It sounds to me like pure Vince Lombardi, but it probably goes back even further than that. I told the players: 'Here's what Bill Parcells said. He said, When the band stops playing and the crowd stops cheering - when people stop paying to come - and it's quiet and all you're left with is yourself, and you've gotta be able to answer the question, Did I do my best? Did I do everything (expletive) possible to win this game?'"

 

Parcells, who won two Super Bowls as a coach and lost one, emphasized his point by saying that the mistakes he made in the loss will "haunt" him forever.

 

Payton said the players were silent in the locker room by that point. When he finished, he said quarterback Drew Brees followed up by calling a players-only meeting so he could give his own motivational speech. Then they finally went in for interviews.

 

"When we went to work Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, everyone was focused. No one was just happy to be there," Payton wrote. "Rather than holding a phony meeting on Tuesday, the players gave me a perfect opportunity to create a crisis. They delivered it to me in a golden wrapper."

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Jerry Jones the Saints fan....guess he wasn't too mad about the bottle of Caymus.

 

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dw...s.3f657eca.html

 

"The Saints' Super Bowl win is one of the greatest things that have happened in the NFL. And it has everything to do with the way the people of Louisiana and the people of New Orleans got up off their knees. It is a privilege for me, as a little bit a part of the NFL, to have gotten to be a little bit a part of what the Saints and the fans of New Orleans have experienced with the Saints winning that Super Bowl.

 

"Short of the Cowboys winning the Super Bowl I can't think of anything that I would rather have been a part of than the Saints winning the Super Bowl last year."

Edited by myhousekey
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