That Should Be A Movie: Home Team by Sean Payton

A Rookie Coach Takes a Team of Underdogs and Leads Them to Became the Symbol of Hope and Healing in the Wake of a Devastating Hurricane.

Now That Should Be A Movie

[Note: This is the first in a series of posts about the New Orleans Saints leading up to Super Bowl LVI. See here for my first post based on Coming Back Strong by Drew Brees.]

Short Pitch

It’s called Home Team. 

It’s a Sports Drama                     

It is in the vein of The Blindside                                      

It is basically American Underdog Meets Invictus 

It follows rookie coach Sean Payton

And injured running back Deuce McAllister

As they rebuild The New Orleans Saints into a team that can bring hope to the Gulf Coast Region after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina

Problems occur when the team loses the last three games of the regular 2009 regular season and McAllister gains too much weight to play.

Together they take inspiration from their fan base and do their utmost to reward their loyalty and give the Crescent City something to believe in as they head to the Super Bowl to play and win the best game ever.

This idea came to me when The Saints won Super Bowl XLIV

My unique approach to the subject is the recovery of a city paralleling the building of a championship team, a symbiotic relationship.

A set piece is when Payton decides to re-sign McAllister. The Saints have lost three games straight and one of their most valuable players has been injured. Still, the people of NOLA have encouraged Payton whenever they see him. “You’re doing us proud!” they tell him. Sean realizes putting Deuce back on the roster would be a morale boost. McAllister has not played for a full season, is running a car dealership in Mississippi, and is overweight, but he is so loved by the fans that many cry when he is injured. So, even though he is so overweight that the NFL fines mean he will not make any money, Deuce agrees to come back to the team. In a dark locker room, Payton shows the team a video highlighting McAllister’s accomplishments. Then the lights turn on and all the players are in awe as he stands there in person. Then with their newfound motivation, the team runs out onto the field with McAllister in the lead. When the 70,000 Who Dats see the number 26 on the back of McAllister’s jersey, the stadium erupts as fans excitedly chant “Deuce! Deuce! Deuce! Deeuuuuuuuuuce!” The Saints go on to win the game, 45-14!

Target Audience: Men and women 20-90, football and sports fans, people involved in athletics and the great outdoors, faith-based, Louisianans, and people in the Gulf Coast region.

Why would audiences be interested? Because of the universal themes of hope in the face of and overcoming adversity, and hope, motivation, inspiration, and healing.

Who Dat!                                                

Thank you for stopping by That Should Be A Movie. Today’s book I would like to pitch as a movie is Home Team: Coaching the Saints and New Orleans Back to Life by Sean Payton and Ellies Henican, from New American Library.

Sean Payton was born in a rural Illinois farming community and spent several years in the wilderness pursuing a career in football. He tried out for one day with the Kansas City Chiefs, played in the Arena and the Canadian football leagues, and during the 1987 NFL players’ strike as a strikebreaker for the Chicago Bears. As a “Spare Bear,” his only interception came against the New Orleans Saints. After playing for the Leicester Panthers as part of the UK Budweiser National League, he returned to the United States to pursue a coaching career. He served in various positions at Indiana State University, Miami University, University of Illinois, and twice at San Diego State before moving on to professional football. In the NFL he was on the rosters for the Philadelphia Eagles, New York Giants, and Dallas Cowboys, where he received great mentorship from Bill Parcells.

Payton’s gypsy years were not fruitless. He learned many important lessons. While interviewing for a graduate assistant position at the University of Nevada at Las Vegas, Coach Wayne Nunnely asked him what he would do if one of the staff members asked him to do something that wasn’t ethical or right. Payton thought his loyalty was being tested so he answered he would do whatever was asked of him, blindfolded. “Wrong answer,” Nunnely replied. “I would want you to come to me.” Payton tried to salvage his answer by explaining, “I thought you wanted to make sure I was someone who would do whatever asked of him.” Nunnely appreciated the sentiment but did not hire him. Payton says that he learned from that experience to “[Not] just tell people what you think they want to hear. Take the time to figure out what you really believe.” (p. 16)

In 2006, Payton left his position with the Cowboys to become head coach of the Saints, who had just ended the 2005 season 3-13, the worst team in the league. The effects of Hurricane Katrina were still evident five months later as Payton flew into New Orleans. Like Brees’ account in Coming Back Strong of noticing from the airplane that many of the trees were decapitated, Payton noticed that many of the houses still had blue tarps for roofs. The Louis Armstrong New Orleans International Airport was the opposite of bustle. As he drove through a city that he had never imagined living in, a city that just six months early had been 80% flooded, he noticed that grass and weeds were still growing, and wrecked cars were still in empty yards. It seemed like a third-world nation.

This devastation extended to the Saints’ training facility on Airline Drive. It had been used by the National Guard as a temporary headquarters during the storm. The practice field had been used as a landing pad for helicopters and the building had sustained three years of damage in just three months. Everything needed repairing. The Saint’s general manager Ricky Loomis, who had just laid the foundation for a new house in Metairie before the storm hit, had been sleeping at the complex.

Payton would soon have his own experiences in this Mad Maxsque world. He stood in line for two and a half hours for medicine for his child at a CVS pharmacy just to find out that due to rationing they could only give him half the prescription. During his wait, no one recognized him as the new coach for the city’s team. Then he stayed in a musty hotel room where everything was falling apart. The rod in the closet snapped, and the door handle on the TV cabinet fell off in his hand. When he mentioned these things to the front desk, the problems were blamed on the storm. This gave defensive coordinator Gary Gibbs the idea never to use Katrina as an excuse. Payton agreed.

Many of the coaches and coordinators he first contacted to be on his staff did not concur. They would see the damage and go with another team. Their wives wouldn’t want to rear their kids in New Orleans with its violent reputation. Ray Nagin did not help things with his racially charged comments about New Orleans being “A chocolate City.” Payton would try to hire staff he knew personally, only to be denied by their coaches. He managed to score big hiring Joe Vit as assistant head coach. According to Payton, it was the second-best signing after Drew Brees.

During his first meeting with the players Payton noticed that many of them had a demeanor of defeat and laziness. Many slouched in their chairs and made comments under their breath. One of them even had a La-Z-Boy in the locker room. Payton quickly had the chair disposed of. The team was facing a lot of uncertainty. Uncertainty over whether New Orleans would rebuild. Over whether the franchise would remain in the city. Uncertainty over Drew Brees’ damaged shoulder. Uncertainty over Deuce McAllister’s injured knee.

Countering the team’s demeanor and the uncertainty was the loyalty of the Saints’ fans, The Who Dat Nation. During the Draft Day Fan Fest, a tailgate party held in a field near the Airline Drive training facility, Payton met and mingled with them. He began to listen to and understand them. He writes of the experience

These were the hard-core Saints fans, a widely diverse mix of black and white, young and old, rich and poor and in between. In some cities, the core NFL fan is a corporate suit with a hefty expense account. In New Orleans, it is some of them and a whole lot of families who come out for the beer and the food…Warm. Friendly. Completely without pretense. Utterly loyal to their team. They certainly hadn’t gotten much encouragement over the years, not in victories anyway…What energy and enthusiasm they had! These people, year after year, who’d chosen to believe when Saints officials said: ‘Wait till next year’ – and then after another disappointing season chosen to believe again: ‘Wait till next year’…their exuberance, their patience, and their love for one another were impossible not to feel. You could not meet these people – stand around and talk with them – without marveling for at least a moment how full of life they were even this soon after Katrina. (p. 90, 91)

These were the people that he liked to conspire with, and he would soon see to it that they would get a Saints draft to match their excitement.

This draft included running back Reggie Bush. At first, there was a shouting match that included profanity between Payton and Mike Orenstein, Reggie’s agent. Reggie himself was doubtful. His doubts were settled when while eating in a restaurant with Payton, local Who Dats saw him and began shouting “Reggie! Reggie! Reggie!”  When Sean and his wife were in line to buy beer at the New Orleans Arena during a concert, a man came up to them and said he was out of a job, but he had still bought four season tickets for himself, his wife, brother, and sister-in-law. Sean was blown away that an unemployed man would spend that much money, a couple of thousand, on tickets. He began to realize how much the Saints supported the city, how much they were intertwined.

Sean responded by getting rid of players who were slacking or were known more for their Bourbon Street antics than their commitment on the field and replacing them with motivated ones such as Brees. He even brought back Deuce McAllister despite his injury from the previous year. Sports analysts said that much of the Saints’ future depended on Drew and Deuce recovering. In a movie, poetic license with Jeremy Shockey’s timeline could be taken and show Payton putting him on the roster in 2006. Payton asked Shockey to draw a circle and to write the names of those close to him inside. Shockey wrote the names of his mother and brother and a former coach. Payton told him, “I want to be in that circle.”

The pre-season did not get off to a good start. Their first game was against Dallas and their coach Parcells to whom Payton had been an assistant for the past three years. The game ended with a Cowboys’ victory, 30-7. Sean turned to Mickey Loomis and said, “We might not win three games this season.” But they didn’t feel sorry for themselves. Payton continued to find and make trade for better players. In a game against the Colts, they lost 27-14. It was clear that Brees’ shoulder was not completely healed up. But they didn’t lose faith in him. The question was not if the shoulder was going to heal but how much better it would grow. McAllister’s knee was also really beginning to heal. The first two road trips for the Saints ended in victories.

Then came the first game in the Superdome. It would be against the Atlanta Falcons, who were having a strong season at 2-0. They had recently completed a franchise record of 306 rushing yards. But Sean wanted his players to focus on what the Saints and their fans had already faced Thirty thousand people had taken refuge in the Dome. It was a place of trauma, thirst, hunger, heat, and unsanitary conditions. Nobody had been murdered in the arena despite early news reports, but one man had committed suicide. After practice Sean had the team gather on the fifty-yard line. He introduced Doug Thornton, a former quarterback from McNeese State, who had been in charge of the $193 million renovation, and Benny Vanderklis, head of security. Both had ridden out the storm in the Dome. Then the Jumbotrons were turned on and played a series of highlights, or more like lowlights, of Hurricane Katrina and the suffering she had inflicted upon the people of New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. The video played for five long minutes. When the video was over, the Hank Williams Jr song “Are You Ready For Some Football” began playing, showing how far the city had come and where they were going. All the players were silent. The symbolism was too much to ignore. 72, 968 people, most of them Saints fans, were going to be in the stadium. “You want to make this night special,” Sean said to the team. “Then you go out and win this game for these people. They deserve it. But you need to win this game.” And they did, beating the Falcons 23-3. “This night belongs to the city, the state of Louisiana, and everyone in the Gulf Coast,” Payton told the media after the win.  

The Saints would go on to have one of their best seasons in history. Sean’s book records some of the same games that Drew writes about in Coming Back Stronger. The Saints went on to beat the Dallas Cowboys in the game Drew recalled how a sea of navy, silver, and white could be seen exiting the stadium as a wave of black and gold was coming closer to the field, cries of “Who Dat” filling the air. Payton loved the idea of beating his former mentor Parcells, 42-17. Drew and Deuce were magnificent in the game against the Philadelphia Eagles. Their teamwork resulted in a franchise-record playoff.  Payton’s book also shares with Brees’ book the account of how the Who Dats reacted after the season-ending defeat to the Chicago Bears. Their flight home had been delayed twice due to the plane being de-iced. But when they touched down at one thirty in the morning, fifteen thousand people were waiting in the cold to thank them for a great season. Only in New Orleans.

At the end of the season, a grave was dug alongside the practice field. Plaques, trophies, MVP and Coach of The Year awards, and mementos were placed in a big wooden casket and buried in a rectangular six-foot-deep grave as a New Orleans Jazz band marched through the facility. Then a sermon was preached as the team bid goodbye to a good season and moved on to the next one.

The 2007 season did not get off to a good start. The Saints were soundly defeated in the first four games, losing 41-10 to the Indianapolis Colts, 31-14 to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 31-14 to the Tennessee Titans and 16-13 to the Carolina Panthers. A lady in a Saints jersey told Payton not to let it rattle him after a game, but many in the media began to doubt, wondering if the team was a one-hit-wonder. Deuce was injured for the second time. The pre-Katrina defeatism was creeping back into the fan base. Sean heard people in line at Winn-Dixie mumbling that the Saints might have had one good season, but they wouldn’t win a championship.

Payton asked Loomis to bring a bandwagon into the practice facility. It had a saxophone, trombone, trumpet, drum set, tuba and guitar. Payton gave a speech about how people love to be on the bandwagon when a team is winning but there is nobody on it when a team is losing. The music was silent. That was what happens when a team is 0 and 4. He then took a metal pipe and destroyed all the instruments, smashing them into twisted hunks of metal. “From this point onward we’re not letting anyone else on this loser’s bandwagon. It’s time for us to be winners again.” They would go on to win their next game against the Seattle Seahawks handily, 28-17.

A contributing factor might have also been the players who went out and dug up the casket buried with 2006’s accomplishments. Sean guesses that a lady in the city probably told the players, “It’s not good mojo, burying your success like that.” The next morning the casket was in the locker room, a sign on it that read “We’re back.” The Saints didn’t make it to the playoffs, but they did turn the season around, finishing 7-9.

The 2008 season began with the trauma of Hurricane Katrina being reawakened. Hurricane Gustave was heading in the general direction of the Louisiana coast. The Colts lent the team Lucas Oil Stadium in Indiana so they could practice for the opening game of the season. Fortunately, Gustave veered west and did not repeat Katrina. The Saints went back to the Superdome and beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, 24-20 . The season was hit and miss, and despite setting several records, ended 8-8 without them making it to the playoff finish.

Regardless of the Saints’ lackluster season, the Who Dat Nation fan base continued to grow, including North Louisiana, Texas, Mississippi, Alabama, and the Florida panhandle. Even people from England were cheering on the former Leicester Panther and his new team. New Orleanians began to recognize Sean on the street. “We’re glad you guys are back,” they would tell him. “Thank you so much for being here.” Many of the players hung around after games, accepting congratulations, signing autographs, posing for photos, and trading high-fives with the fans. Some tossed wrist pads and other gear into the crowds of fans. Payton would throw his visor. In a post-9/11 world, many teams had security to whisk them away from stadiums after their games. Not the Saints.

The team’s dedication to the city extended off the field. Drew Brees partnered with Habitat for Humanity, Rebuilding Through Brotherhood, and Operation Kids to help rebuild and restore juvenile educational and sports facilities. Deuce McAllister administered the Catch-22 Foundation, providing opportunities for disadvantaged youth in the Gulf Coast region. Steve Gleason took part in Locks Of Love, growing out and cutting off his hair to send to children in chemo. Scott Fujita, who had been adopted, got involved with AdoptNOLA. Jon Stinchcomb got involved with the Children’s’ Hospital. Anthony Hargrove, who had been in trouble earlier in life, got involved in the juvenile detention center. Sometimes he would take Reggie Bush along. The team partnered with Rebuilding Together New Orleans and would show up at projects where they would hammer nails, hang drywall, paint walls, haul lumber, rake debris, build fences, and plant trees.

A symbol of the Saints sharing with the city’s trials and tribulations involves Payton’s own housing project. Due to a shortage of American-made drywall, many Who Dats, including the Paytons, used inferior imports. In the humid climate of Louisiana, the drywall emitted gases with disturbing effects. In the Payton house, it caused the air conditioners to fail, the microwave to go haywire, the alarms to malfunction, the computer hard drives to crash and Beth Payton’s jewelry to turn black. The inspectors told the Paytons they had to move out of their new home. Now displaced like many Who Dats, the Payton’s joined other New Orleans families in a class-action lawsuit against the company.

In a film, this could be the event that causes Payton to make sacrifices to build the best team for New Orleans. He had resisted public calls to fire his good friend Gary Gibbs, but eventually gave in when he realized that Gregg Williams would make a better assistant head coach. Payton was so convinced that Williams was the right man that when the franchise could only offer $1.25 million for an offer that was $1.5 million, Sean told Mickey to take the money out of his own coaching salary. They weren’t losing the opportunity over $250,000.

The 2009 season got off to a great start. The Saints were 14-0. But then crisis. They lost to Dallas, 24-17. Then they lost to Tampa Bay, 20-17. Then they lost to Carolina, 23-10. People began saying that the Saints were not playing as well as they did early in the season. No team had ever finished a season 0-3 and gone on to the Super Bowl.

It’s the end of Act Two. Our protagonist is down and defeated.

However, the local fans were still thrilled. They were still coming up to the players and saying, “You’re doing us proud!” Payton decided to put Deuce McAllister, who had not played that year due to his weight and was running a car dealership in Mississippi, back on the roster. He was twenty-six pounds overweight and the fines for that would cost him more than he would make, but as the team’s all-time leading rusher, he was all for it. When McAllister led the team out onto the field at the next game and the Who Dats saw jersey number 26, the stadium erupted with “Deuce! Deuce! Deuce!” The game ended in a 45-14 victory thanks to Reggie Bush finishing with eighty-four yards on five rushes and twenty-four yards on four receptions as well as 109 yards on three punt returns.

The crisis was over.

The game against the Minnesota Vikings for the National Football Championship came down to kicker Garrett Hartley. Payton was going to risk the game, the entire season, and the hopes of a whole region on the concentration of a long-haired kid that he describes as the refuge from last year’s boy band. Hartley had been suspended for four games after taking Adderall, a banned prescription. And recently in a game against Tampa Bay, he had missed an important fourth-quarter thirty-seven-yarder, sending the game into overtime. Tampa won. When Sean went out to talk to him, he noticed a fleur-de-lis hanging in the stadium, centered perfectly between the uprights. He told him to aim for it. He did and the stadium erupted in euphoria as the Saints won the National Football Championship and were going to the Super Bowl!

Two notes of human interest: 1) The team’s travel arrangements to the Bowl were made by Reggie’s former agent who resisted his signing with the Saints, but was now Payton’s friend, Mike Orenstein. 2) During the flight, Payton noticed giddiness among the team. They were just happy to be at the Super Bowl. He had his old mentor and foe Bill Parcells speak to the team. Bill Parcells had won two Super Bowls and lost one. “When the band stops playing and the crowd stops cheering,” Parcells said to the team. “…you got to be able to answer the question “Did I do my best? Did I do everything [expletive] possible to win this game?” (p. 250)

This was the Colts’ second Super Bowl appearance in four seasons. It was the Saint’s first Super Bowl game in forty-three years. The game was close for a while. Colts player Joseph Addai scored a touchdown, bringing the game to 17-13. Hartley scored a field goal from forty-seven yards, putting the Saints up one point. Hartley became the first field goal kicker in Super Bowl history to hit three goals from more than forty yards. Wide receiver Lance Moore, who had almost been benched due to sustaining hamstring and ankle injuries during the season, caught a touchdown throw from Brees. The officials claimed the pass was incomplete. Payton threw the flag and after review, the pass was ruled complete. The game was now 24-17. Brees threw two touchdown passes to Reggie Bush and Jeremy Shockey, who had missed out on a Super Bowl with a former team because he was on the injured reserve list.

The score was now 22-17. Colts Quarterback Peyton Manning was mounting another drive, trying to tie the game, but an interception by Tracy Porter and a seventy-five-yard drive to the end zone brought it to 31-17, Saints. “Stand Up and Get Crunk,” a favorite with Falcon fans, but adopted by the Saints, began playing whenever the Saints scored. The crowd was 80 percent Saints fans. Even in Miami, they were the home team.

Linebacker Troy Evans got a cramp on the field. He was fine but the officials called for a TV time out and allowed everyone to catch their breath. Cornerback Jabari Greer dislocated his finger with three minutes left in the game. The Saint’s third cornerback, Rand Gray, was out with the flue. Usama Young, their backup cornerback, usually a safety, was out on the field. Defending a fourteen-point lead without a safety-playing corner was a nightmare scenario. A timeout was called. The team doctor looked at Greer’s finger, grabbed it, and jerked. Payton almost passed out watching. Without time to make a splint, they tapped it to Greer’s pinkie, and he was back out into the game. They were fighting to keep the Colts from making any more points.

Payton was so intent on keeping the Colts from scoring that when Joe Vitt approached him, he told him to back it up. “I’m just trying to hug you,” Vitt said. “You’re a world champion.”

Then it dawned on Payton.

The Saints had won the Super Bowl!

“Tonight,” said commissioner Roger Goodell as the Vince Lombardi Trophy was handed to Sean. “The Super Bowl belongs to the city of New Orleans, [the Saint’s] greatest fans…The hope, the courage, the inspiration [the Saints] provide to your community is inspiring.” Commentator Jim Nantz asked owner Tom Benson what the night meant to him and New Orleans. “Well, I tell you,” the team’s owner replied. “And not only this city but this whole state. And Louisiana, by the way, New Orleans is back. And we showed the whole world. We’re back. We’re back. The whole world.” Drew Brees said the team had a city, maybe an entire country, behind them. “…God is great. We got the best ownership family in the league the best head coach, the best general manager, and the best team. And we proved that night.” When Sean saw Jeremy Shockey on the field with his mother, he approached and thanked him for letting him into his circle. Later that night he saw Reggie Bush and in a bear hug lifted him two inches off the ground. Reggie admitted that he was uncertain when first coming to the team, but “God had a plan, and I just needed you to help me see it.”

The road to the airport for their flight home was lined with parked cars. People were leaning from their windows, even standing on their hoods, trying to see the team as they clapped and waved. But the biggest parade was in New Orleans. All the different Mardi Gras crews had worked together to get their floats ready. A million people turned out for the victory celebration. Since the city was down a quarter of its pre-Katrina official population of 300,000, it was a clear sign that New Orleans was back.

The story of the Saints and Super Bowl 44 has many great elements that would make a great movie. It is a combination of underdog, comeback, and Cinderella stories. It is a story of hope and inspiration, of rebuilding and rebirth in the face of devastation, themes that resonate with people across the world and time. It is a story of racial and economic healing as people unite in their common goal to overcome adversity The language of film offers many apropos montages of New Orleanians and the Gulf Coast Who Dats cleaning up and rebuilding intercut with the Saints training to become a better team and winning victories on the field.

I could see Dennis Quaid as Sean Payton, Jon Voight as Tom Benson, Bradley Whitford as Joe Vitt, Mark Ruffalo as Mickey Loomis, Chris Pratt as Drew Brees, David Oyelowo as Deuce McAllister, Jake Gyllenhaal as Steve Gleason, John Boyega as Reggie Bush, Alexander Ludwig as Garrett Hartley, Charlie Hunnam as Jeremy Shockey, T. C. Stallings as Jabari Greer and Jovan Adepo as Anthony Hargrove. Special appearances could be made by singers who are connected to the Saints, like Hank Williams, Jr. and Sean’s friend, Kenny Chesney. Actors connected to players and the NOLA area like John Goodman and Ben McKenzie could have cameos. And finally, special appearances should be made during the scenes in the Super Dome by the fans, the loyal Who Dats. Directors like John Lee Hancock, Randall Wallace, Denzel Washington, or the Erwin Brothers would have no trouble getting them loud and enthusiastic about their home team. Plus production if they chose to film in New Orleans, which they should, would have no problem getting them to show up in their own Saints-themed apparel, costumes, jewelry, hats, and bags, and makeup ready in their own black and gold paint. 

Because it is an inspirational movie about football helping an entire region overcome and rebuild in the face of adversity is why I believe Home Team by Sean Payton should be a movie filmed in Louisiana. Who Dat!

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