Deuce McAllister knew it was Falcons Week by the can of earworms Sean Payton had opened inside his brain.
For days on end, the Saints played nothing but Atlanta-based recording artists, nothing but Atlanta music, on a loop. Practice. Locker room. Meetings. Deuce was hearing OutKast’s “Elevators” in his sleep.
“You definitely knew who you were playing that week,” the former Saints star told me recently when I’d asked how the new Broncos planned to tackle the issue of Patrick Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs.
“(Payton) will find something. He’ll play mind games with them.”
This past Monday? Just a teaser. A taste. When Payton told the media throng during his introductory news conference that he was picking the Eagles to win Sunday’s Super Bowl LVII because he’s in Denver now and the Chiefs shouldn’t have nice things, you could hear fists pumping from Larkspur to Loveland.
Here’s the kicker, though: He meant every word.
“(Payton) embraces rivalries,” continued McAllister, who played three seasons for the Broncos coach in New Orleans.
“He loves to play mind games. For him, the focus is obviously on putting in the work. For Kansas City, for the Chargers, for the Raiders, any rival that you have, he’s going to embrace that.
“He’s going to let his teams know where you guys (in the media) have them picked. ‘Here’s what ESPN thinks of you. Here’s what FOX thinks of you. Here’s what the local guys think of you.’ Anything he can try to find … even if it’s just changing the mentality, he’s going to try to find every trick.”
He’s going to pick fights, and it’s about dang time. The Broncos haven’t beaten the Chiefs since September 2015. They’re 0-11, all-time, against Mahomes. Finally, the Broncos have a coach who’s not above holding Jake from State Farm by his sneakers over a jazz bath in order to land some intel.
When someone advises Payton he shouldn’t poke a sleeping bear with that stick, his first instinct is to put the stick down, then go into the woods, come back with a bigger stick and resume poking again.
“To come here and have all the success he had, and now he’s in Denver,” another former Saints great, Pat Swilling, told me over the phone from Louisiana. “Denver is a lot different. Denver is a place where (they’ve won multiple Super Bowls).
“They’re the Broncos. There’s some nostalgia there. I think he’ll get that back. He’s going to get that team back to where they’re contenders. And if I was Kansas City and the Raiders and everybody else (in the AFC West), I know they’re going to take notice that Sean Payton’s in town. It’s going to be different.”
It’s going to be fun. Nathaniel Hackett saw the Chiefs as the team he grew up with, a potential future employer, a mighty beast to be respected and feared.
Payton sees them for what they are: In the way.
“He knows he’s got to slow down (Mahomes),” McAllister continued. “Those guys (in the locker room) will know in every situation exactly how they have to go out and do it.
“Even if they know how to do it, you’ve still got to execute it, though. It’ll kill him to try and slow it down — “Hey, I might need to run it a little bit more, I may need to give (Mahomes) fewer possessions’ — but he’ll do it.”
Payton gets it. The standards. The tradition. The passion. The pride. The history. The rivalries.
The latter, especially. If you want another sampler of what’s to come, Google a television commercial Payton shot as coach of the Saints about 10 years ago for a local debit card campaign. In it, he’s out at a restaurant, and the camera cuts to him going over menu that features fake entrees such as “Sauteed Seahawk,” “Smothered Panther,” and “Barbecued Bear” — all digs at NFC peers — before he orders “Roasted Falcon.”
“Excellent choice,” the waiter says while Payton smirks.
At the end of the spot, the future Broncos coach can be seen dabbing his lips over an empty plate of bird bones and a mess of black and red feathers.
Along the Waffle House belt, Saints-Falcons is a thing. Payton backed it up, though, posting a 21-9 record against Atlanta from 2006-21. Prior to his arrival in 2006, New Orleans had dropped three of its last four in the series.
From 2003 through 2005, the Saints were 2-4 vs. Tampa Bay; Payton went 20-12. From 2003-05, New Orleans was 2-4 against Carolina; Payton went 17-13. He won four of five meetings against Tom Brady while the GOAT was slinging it for the Bucs.
The bigger the bear, the bigger the stick.
Chiefs Week?
It’s coming. Like burnt ends and Boulevard Wheat on a December night.
“He may put someone (outside UCHealth Training Center), where you’ll smell some Kansas City BBQ in the parking lot from out on the practice fields,” McAllister laughed. “There’ll be some mind games, no doubt about it.”
Because like a good neighbor, the pride for Sean Payton doesn’t just come from starting fights. The pride comes from finishing them.
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