HANAGRIFF: Payton’s return illuminates golden era

By Charles Hanagriff

The Golden Age of LSU football is approaching a quarter century.  What’s happened since 2000 has dwarfed what happened before, and what happened before had some pretty significant players, coaches and wins. 

If you’re under 35, and the first coach you really remember was Gerry Dinardo, it is difficult to appreciate how long it took LSU to get where they are now, expecting to win championships. 

Dinardo was more good than bad, leaving the Tigers frustratingly close to breaking through.  It took Nick Saban to instill the excellence and the swagger that LSU now enjoys. 

This exercise is even more difficult if you do it with the Saints. 

Sean Payton returns to the Superdome on Thursday night wearing Denver Broncos orange.  At some point he may gaze up near the ceiling, where his name will be emblazoned the minute he hangs up his headset for good.   

In Black and Gold. 

Because Payton isn’t just a coach that came through and won a lot of games.  Many coaches have done that in the NFL.  Payton changed a culture, and he did it at arguably the most difficult time any professional football organization had ever endured. 

Following Hurricane Katrina, the first mission was just to keep the franchise in New Orleans.  Even with a giant assist from Commissioner Paul Tagliabue, the city would have to buy tickets and suites at a higher level.  The city was in no position to do that at the time.  To convince the league that the city could, the Saints would have to win. 

Quickly.  At a level they never had before.  Otherwise, this column would be about Payton’s triumphant return to San Antonio. 

But unlike LSU when Saban got there, there was no storied (if somewhat distant) history to return to.  The Saints had never really won anything. 

No, really. 

Jim Mora had put the Saints on the brink, but in ten seasons he had exactly the same winning percentage (56%) that Dinardo had in five at LSU.  Dinardo couldn’t get the Tigers to the SEC Championship.  Mora could not win a playoff game. 

Jim Haslett managed to win the first postseason game in franchise history in 2000, but he was exactly a .500 coach after that until Katrina hit. 

Enter Payton, who took over when the owner had one foot out the door, and the fans were still trying to recover from the devastation of the storm. 

From the emotional night when the Superdome reopened, to the molding of future Hall of Fame quarterback Drew Brees, to that wonderful night in Miami when the team finally won the Super Bowl, Payton made the dream of every Saints fan come true. 

The reality before Payton was maybe a playoff trip if everything fell right.  The Super Bowl was a dream akin to winning the lottery while standing on the surface of the moon. 

They never made it back there, although they had the best team in 2011 and got royally screwed in 2018 (no, I am NEVER getting over that).  Now that Payton is gone, more than anything, the confidence in the Saints leadership has faded.  It’s a challenging thing to restore. 

Payton had a presence that complimented his confidence, as all great coaches do.  Part Bill Walsh, part Bill Parcells, Payton gave Saints fans the belief that their team could win every time out. 

For the record, Payton won more games than every other coach in Saints history combined except Mora.  He won seven division titles compared to a combined two for the rest.  He won nine postseason games, eight more than all his predecessors.  

John Madden once said that ten years in one place was about the most you could expect out of an NFL head coach.  Payton bested that by 50 percent and never had a season with less than seven wins. 

I fell in love with football watching the Saints from a rural part of south Louisiana at a time when the NFL was on TV every week and LSU rarely was.  My uncle, a season ticket holder from the birth of the franchise, took me to my first game.  He never got to see the Saints win before he passed. 

I finally did, and it was because of Sean Payton.  I will be forever grateful, and in no way resentful that he is now coaching another team. 

Now, if he had gone to the Falcons…