Payton eager for fast start

• By SHELDON MICKLES
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Sep 4, 2008 - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Reprints
• Twitter
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

On the evening of Sept. 6, 2007, the New Orleans Saints went into their season opener against the defending Super Bowl champion Indianapolis Colts as the favorites to represent the NFC in Super Bowl XLII.

Just one month and one day later, the Saints were off to an 0-4 start and careening toward a 7-9 season in which they would fall far short of their goal of reaching the Super Bowl for the first time in franchise history.

It was a cruel slap to the face of the Saints, but especially to second-year coach Sean Payton, who steered his team to the NFC Championship Game in 2006 in his first season as a head coach at any level.

“It was really the first challenge for us,” Payton said recently. “We went through a time in 2006 where we lost three straight (actually two), but that (0-4 start) was the first challenge for us as a team under this staff. So I think all of us lost a lot of sleep over that.”

By nature, most NFL coaches don’t get a lot of sleep during the season. But that month-long stretch was extraordinary for Payton because of the high expectations his team carried into the new season.

“When you come into a season with high expectations and you get off to a start like that, it forces you to dig down,” Payton said. “The one thing about our job is that you have the ability the following week to put a good feeling in your stomach. So as bad as you may feel after a certain loss the only way I know how to get rid of that is to get back to work.

“Our players, our coaching staff, all of us collectively kind of hunkered in and the good thing was the ship never divided,” he said. “We came back and won four games in a row. So it tests you, it tests the locker room, it tests the coaching staff, it tests you. I was pleased with how we handled that test.”

The Saints were 7-7 late in the season with a chance to reach the playoffs, but two straight losses left them on the outside looking in.

But the bitter taste of 2007 didn’t linger long. Team officials were exceptionally busy in the offseason with free agency, the trade market and the draft — aiming to improve a defense that ranked 26th in total yards allowed last season.

When the Saints open the 2008 season on Sunday against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the Superdome, Payton will have one eye on his defense in an attempt to avoid a disastrous start like last season.

To be sure, he’s excited about the possibility of doing just that, despite spending the week preparing for the Bucs in Indianapolis because of Hurricane Gustav’s arrival in south Louisiana.

When asked what he learned most last year, Payton didn’t hesitate.

“You learn how important it is to start the season off well,” he said. “You learn how important the turnover ratio is. These are lessons that we know, yet they’re pounded in again each year when you start a season. I think we have a chance to be a better football team after some of the challenges we had a year ago.”

Defensively, the Saints added middle linebacker Jonathan Vilma, a former NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year, through a trade with the New York Jets and signed cornerback Randall Gay, a former LSU standout, in unrestricted free agency.

Then, the Saints used their top two draft picks on defense. They traded up three spots to select defensive tackle Sedrick Ellis, who’ll start Sunday, then grabbed cornerback Tracy Porter, a Port Allen native, in the second round.

The Saints went into the offseason wanting to strengthen a defensive line that could pressure the quarterback more. The extra pressure could help a secondary that gave up 32 TDs and 54 passes of 20 yards or more.

“We thought there were some areas that we needed to improve and inject some new talent, too,” Payton said. “We felt like we gave up too many big plays and too many easy scores.

“We also talked about and we’re working on doing a better job of taking the ball away,” he said of his defense, which tied for 26th in the league with just 23 takeaways in 2007. “We have to do a better job creating turnovers. And again, more pressure on the quarterback has been a big emphasis and we can’t allow the ball to get behind us.”

Even though the Saints ranked fourth in the league in total offense last season thanks to a second straight 4,400-yard passing season by Drew Brees, Payton said there are some things they need to improve.

Among them are protecting the ball better after giving it up 12 times in the 0-4 start last year and doing better in short-yardage situations, namely third-and-2 to third-and-3. They converted just 24 of 46 attempts from those distances last season.

“We want to be more efficient in how we operate on third down in general,” Payton said. “We improved from the year before, yet when we watched the tape third-and-2 to third-and-3 wasn’t as good as we would have liked.”

Another key will be the running game. Last season, the Saints ranked 28th with just 91.6 yards a game, mainly because Deuce McAllister missed the final 13 games after tearing his left ACL.

“There’s a lot that goes into winning football games consistently,” Payton said, “and those are the things that we’ve worked on and we’ve tried to preach.”