Payton's Place Ripe for More Parades

It isn't a bandwagon we're jumping on. It's a Mardi Gras float, a wave of confidence that dares to suggest that the New Orleans Saints, a team that wasn't supposed to win the Super Bowl unless the apocalypse arrived, might win another one next year. I realize the NFL means Not For Long, particularly in a millennium when only the New England Patriots have repeated as champions.

But the Saints, who borrowed their rides from Mardi Gras krewes Tuesday at the first nighttime title party ever thrown, might not be finished with their jambalaya joy. I say that not only because Drew Brees is at the apex of his career, his weapons are young and potent and the NFC is eminently more winnable than the stacked AFC, but because Sean Payton has become football's state-of-the-art coach.

That's right, Sean Payton, the same man who looks younger than some of his players, the same man who once had his play-calling responsibilities removed with the New York Giants, the same man so desperate for a chance to play in the NFL that he served the Chicago Spare Bears as a scab quarterback during the 1987 labor impasse. No one can say he hasn't paid his dues, yet no one can say he hasn't persevered and capitalized in ways very impressive and admirable. On Saturday, the day before the city's greatest sports triumph, New Orleans elected a new mayor, Mitch Landrieu.

I'm guessing Payton, had he chosen to run, would have won the election in a landslide. "I think I could kiss him right now,'' gushed Saints owner Tom Benson, whose standing in New Orleans was saved by Payton and Brees after he was vilified four years ago for threatening to move the team after Hurricane Katrina. We've watches several accomplished coaches -- Mike Ditka, Jim Mora, Bum Phillips, Wade Phillips and Hank Stram among them -- take over the Saints and not come close to what Payton has achieved in four astonishingly quick seasons. It's stunning enough that he has transformed a hopeless losing culture into a rousing success. But what blows us away is his savvy as a leader, his ability to command respect from his players while serving them with guidance that was on full display in Miami.

In what very clearly is a superstar-oriented league, Payton was the star of the Super Bowl. Brees won the MVP award, the Disney World commercial and priceless media attention with his headphone-wearing son, but Payton put the Saints in position to win with the greatest play call in the game's 44-year history. He would have been forgiven for shifting into conservative mode after his failed call in the second quarter, when he went for the touchdown on 4th-and-goal at the Indianapolis 1 and watched Colts linebacker Gary Brackett stuff running back Pierre Thomas. But Payton is the coach of the Saints, and since arriving months after the mass devastation of Katrina, he has been among the driving forces to help a city feel good and have pride through the power of the local football team. And if New Orleans could be so courageous in the face of tragedy, wasn't it his responsibility to have some guts in his own way and try to win a championship for the good people?