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ARTICLE
HEAD COACH SEAN PAYTON Are you going use the fade route? A lot of teams have it. I don't know if we've completed a jump-ball fade this year, but when you get in there real tight, it's a play that a lot of people will carry. Sometimes you partner it with a running play. If you don't get the look you want, just give the quarterback an outlet to do that. It's a play that most people carry. We work on it at the end of the week. If you get a matchup you look for and like it, I saw Denver had done that in the game tape. It just depends on the opponent. Why are you throwing so much? We try not to set a number on how many attempts (Drew Brees) is going to have. I said this last week after the Tampa game, I prefer to have balance and more rushing attempts. Last week, Tampa did a good job of crowding the line of scrimmage and bringing a safety down on early downs and took away our running game, more than we would have liked. We try to go in with that, yet we still have to improve in the running game. We've been able to get on the same page in a short area of time with some young players. Drew Brees has a lot to do with that. He's a pretty good decision maker. He understands the passing game well. He works at it. The first challenge for him was just in rehabbing his shoulder. He's close to 100 percent. Each week, the way the game unfolds can even surprise you as a coach or play caller. Last week, Joe Horn was injured going into the game. We ended up in some nickel packages. Devery Henderson made some plays. I would have liked to run the ball more efficiently but we weren't able to. Some other players were able to step up. I think that's something that each week can vary. It's hard to, on a consistent basis, run the football in our league. You never want to stop looking for that. What did you expect out of Marques Colston? Honestly, in the seventh round we were hoping to get a young player that we could develop. Everyone would say that we're all surprised with where he's at right now. When we drafted him and brought him in here, we felt like he had size, speed and other measure-ables that you look for. The perfect vision we had for him was two or three years down the road we'll see how he developed and maybe he can turn into a starter. To his credit he's worked hard at it. He came into training camp in really good shape and had been through the mini-camps, and had a better grasp of what we were doing system-wise. He was able to, over four or five weeks, be consistent, catch the ball and do things on a daily basis that you look for from a receiver. If you were just at practice or just at camp for that month and watched all the practices, you would have come away with the same impression, that this No. 12 has to be your best split end, he has to be one of your starters. I think sometimes it's difficult because you can prejudice yourself to the seventh-round selection, Hofstra and all of that. If you just went by what you see, what you try to do, we felt like he was playing the best over there. How much has moving back to New Orleans helped the team turnaround? That's a good question. I think people are passionate about this team. Having their team back in the city and representing this region, back in the Super Dome is significant for a lot of these fans. For me, having never lived here before, moving here in January, then getting a feel for this region and the importance of this team here, there's not another thing going on. LSU is up the road and that's a big deal to these people. The Saints are significant. For this town to go through what they did and on top of that to lose their Sundays with the Saints for a full year, it's something that they are really excited about regarding the team coming back. Fortunately, for us, where we are at record-wise, we've given them a little more juice and reason to be excited. That's something that's unique. Do you feel some responsibility? We've discussed that. I've talked about it and we've discussed it as a staff. The first thing we can do is try to improve as a team and win more games. If you do that, then you can make people happy. There is a lot of charitable work that goes on in the community with rebuilding. There's a ton of work that remains. Our players, the organization and the people in the community have been great that way. The immediate thing that we can do now is try to play the best football we can each week. I think the fans appreciate that. There has been a relationship between the fan base and this specific team. The players have taken hold of that and relished it. Are you surprised by the Steelers current struggles? I know that they didn't expect to be sitting at 2-6. When you watch them, they're playing physical. They're a team that we have a lot of respect for. The turnover thing is always difficult and it can affect you in games. You can play very good football and have a lot of yards or play very good defensive football, yet the turnovers affect you. It affected us a week ago when we played Baltimore. It's something that we try to work on each week. I know you're only at the halfway point of the season. I know Coach Cowher and how he'll approach it with his players. There is a lot of tradition there and for good reason. This a team that won the Super Bowl a year ago and has won a bunch of Super Bowls. I shared this with our media here today, we're aspiring to someday build a program that Pittsburgh's been able to build over the history of this league. That's a credit to them. I'm sure he'll be able to get that change and I know the team will be able to get that changed. What were your impressions when you got there and what's it like now? When I first got here in January, you had traffic, you had people. It was different from what I expected. Living in Dallas and seeing the town in the news, I thought I'd be coming to a ghost town. It was much different than that. There was a lot of traffic, a lot more commuting into the city for work purposes. Areas that you would travel to really see where the damage is, it looks like it happened a week ago. There are still areas that you would look at and you might think a month ago the storm hit. There are areas that have recovered quicker. Businesses are reopening, restaurants and hotels are reopening in the city. For me, being here since January, it's been a gradual change. Maybe not at the pace that you want to see it but you can noticeably see the difference. There are baby steps. The Super Dome reopened. The people did a great job renovating that facility. Baby steps in the city with businesses. It's a long road for this area and this region to get back. You just have to take it one day at a time. Hopefully we've been able to be a part of that and will continue to do that. Has this affected you at all? From a positive standpoint it's pretty powerful when you see a guy who's bought four season tickets and doesn't know where he's going to work the next year or someone tells you a story about how his grandfather grew up with the Saints team. Each person has a different story and at the end they're all fans of this team, passionate fans. For my first year, coming into a job and being the head coach here, that's one of the things, you get up in the morning and it motivates you and inspires you and it's pretty powerful. The uniqueness that's happened here after this hurricane and this team's return back to the city is special. It's unusual. It's different and we've tried to embrace that.
RUNNING BACK DEUCE McALLISTER Has this been a magical season for you guys? I don't know if it's magical. We still have to play well to win. This is what we wanted. It's what we expected going into the season. We believed it. It's just a matter of going out there and executing it. Has it been a different role for you? It's not about me going out there and carrying this team to win. We have more playmakers with Drew Brees, Reggie Bush and young receivers that are stepping up. We have more playmakers that can go out and carry some of the load. That takes the pressure off of me. I don't have to go out and have a stellar game each week. How different is it to practice at home, unlike last year? It makes a world of difference because you're in familiar settings. You get into a routine. You're somewhere where you are comfortable. That's not saying that San Antonio didn't take care of us as best as possible but it was always something different for us, whether it was a different practice schedule, a different field, changing venues, getting ready and being on the road every week. It was always something. We were just not able to overcome it as a team. Do you feel that there are a lot of people rooting for you guys? We feel like we have a lot of people rooting for us but at the same time, we know when we step on the field and play against those other teams, they don't really care. They're out there to get a victory. They feel sorry for you off the field and when the game isn't being played. When that game starts to play, they don't really care. They want a W, just like you do. What do you credit with the team's turnaround? There are many factors. We've had some guys that have made plays for us. At the same time, being at home has helped us. It's a different atmosphere as far as players making plays that we didn't make last year as a team. How much has Brees meant to you? He's had a good year. He's been pretty consistent for us. He's still learning us as a team and we're still learning him as a quarterback. He's been pretty consistent for us. How is the town progressing? The recovery has progressed to the point where you can see some progress being made. There is a long way to go as far as things needing to be done in the city of New Orleans and the surrounding areas. You just try to find a way to make that day better than the last one. What do you remember from your last meeting with the Steelers? Any time you play against the Steelers, you know it's going to be a physical game. We just had to outlast them last time we played them here in New Orleans. Up front, they're a stout defense. On the back end, those guys are going to come up. They want to get involved in the running game. We're going to have to execute and hopefully we can get it done. Why are your running stats so low? We're not being hardheaded. We'll continue to run the ball and hopefully I'll make a play. We've had other guys that have stepped up and made plays for us. We're particularly pleased about that. I'll take the Ws any time I can get them though. How's your rookie RG (Jahri Evans) doing? He's doing well. He's still getting his feet wet. Each week is a different opponent. We say it's not quite like Bloomsburg, where he came from. He's doing well. You have a lot of rookies on offense? Yeah, we have a lot of rookies that have stepped up and played. They've prepared themselves for this and they stepped in and made plays for us. What does Bush mean to the team? His ability to be out there, as a decoy or making a play on this team. He hasn't had that spectacular play that he wants yet. We feel like, as a group, that he's coming along and progressing. We know its coming. How was his punt return? That'll help. How do your jersey sales compared to theirs? They can have their fanfare. |
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