It's official: Sean Payton > John Fox

[Saint J]

/night

/thread

[carolinanimal]

whats sad is that all the news you see about the saints winning isnt about how they won through good play and such. all you hear about is katrina and how it uplifted the town. it has been 5 years since that happened!!

none of that happened when the the twin towers happened in new york , or all those hurricanes hit florida.

how does a superbowl help new orleans? if they win the superbowl will that rebuild houses? did they cut ticket prices or anything?

[top dawg]

I wish that Fox could adapt to the flow and feel of the game like Payton, and not just follow the Foxball script...Oh, if Fox, could be so imaginative and bold.

Pretty poorly reasoned.

John Fox made a similar "gutsy call" a while back when he had Chris Gamble try a throwback on a return against the Vikings. It was badly executed and he was pilloried for it.

As London67 pointed out, if Hank Baskett had simply fallen on that ball, it's highly possible we could have all been calling Payton an idiot today.

Every coach in the league makes good decisions and bad ones. And even if your coach makes more good ones than bad, it can all be moot if the players don't execute.

I wanted Fox replaced this season, but even with that in mind i acknowledge that he's a good coach. Are there things I wish he'd do differently? Yes, but I've been watching football long enough to know that judging how good a coach is by whether or not his gambles work out is a poor method.

Scot, if you think that this is just about an onside kick, then you're missing the whole point. Any coach worth his salt can come up with a pretty effective game plan on paper, but it's the game time adjustments from the sidelines that give your team the best opportunity to win that makes great coaches.

There are some, even in this thread, who believe that the Panthers are better on paper than the Saints when you look at each position. They are probably thinking that Payton did more with less, and John Fox did less with more (and, going off on a tangent, he should have done more with Moore).

Anyway, I am a Panthers fan, so I am not going to belabor the point, but suffice it to say that the Saints FO, including Sean Payton, made some excellent personnel decisions in putting together their own puzzle that led them to the championship, especially having the foresight to attain a fantastic QB in Brees. This team was the team that Payton built. It wasn't a mistake. They acquired the pieces and followed it through, all the way to the championship.

Fox and his cohorts have had the opportunity to build a championship team for years, but haven't gotten it done, like it or not. And, don't give me that execution argument because it's a coaches job to make sure his guys execute. If his guys aren't executing, then he needs to replace them with guys that can. Fox has been a good coach, for sure, but he has made some piss poor decisions during the last four years----the preponderance of which have been from the sidelines. Until he raises the Vince Lombardi trophy in the air, he gets no more benefit of the doubt.

[Mr. Scot]

Scot, if you think that this is just about an onside kick, then you're missing the whole point. Any coach worth his salt can come up with a pretty effective game plan on paper, but it's the game time adjustments from the sidelines that give your team the best opportunity to win that makes great coaches.

There are some, even in this thread, who believe that the Panthers are better on paper than the Saints when you look at each position. They are probably thinking that Payton did more with less, and John Fox did less with more (and, going off on a tangent, he should have done more with Moore).

Anyway, I am a Panthers fan, so I am not going to belabor the point, but suffice it to say that the Saints FO, including Sean Payton, made some excellent personnel decisions in putting together their own puzzle that led them to the championship, especially having the foresight to attain a fantastic QB in Brees. This team was the team that Payton built. It wasn't a mistake. They acquired the pieces and followed it through, all the way to the championship.

Fox and his cohorts have had the opportunity to build a championship team for years, but haven't gotten it done, like it or not. And, don't give me that execution argument because it's a coaches job to make sure his guys execute. If his guys aren't executing, then he needs to replace them with guys that can. Fox has been a good coach, for sure, but he has made some piss poor decisions during the last four years----the preponderance of which have been from the sidelines. Until he raises the Vince Lombardi trophy in the air, he gets no more benefit of the doubt.

Here's your original post.

What a gutsy call. Payton gave his team the spark that they needed at the time, and it propelled them to victory. John Fox has never been that imaginative and willing to take risks in the regular season, much less the Super Bowl. Payton saw that his team was falling a little flat, and decided to seize the day. He believed that he could surprise the Colts (which he did). He had enough belief in his team---specifically, his offense---that they could still overcome and win the game even if the onside attempt kick failed. He knew what his offense could do if they recovered the ball. He was taking a gamble, but was playing to the strength of his team. I wish that Fox could adapt to the flow and feel of the game like Payton, and not just follow the Foxball script. Granted, it's a little easier to make a call like that when you have Drew Brees as your QB, but Payton was responsible for Brees even being there. Oh, if Fox, could be so imaginative and bold.

Payton's move reminded of another coach's call in his first Super Bowl appearance...

You say now that it's not just about the onside kick, but your post didn't reference anything else.

And for the record, this wasn't a game time adjustment. Saints guys have been saying that Payton had determined a week before the game that he would do an onside kick if the Colts were getting the ball first in the second half.

My question would be, if you don't want Manning getting the ball to start the second half, since you won the toss, why not just defer? It accomplishes the same goal without the risk of an onside kick.

And as Magnus poined out, the offensive playcalling wasn't really tweaked all that much going into the second half. If you want to give a guy credit for in-game adjustments and game planning, you should be talking about Gregg Williams.

Bottom line, this is the same old "his gamble worked, therefore he's a genius" stuff that happens all the time. And if it had gone the other way, we'd be calling him a dunce. But again, it's short sighted and ignores the big picture when you judge a coach on the success or failure of his gambles.

[frash.exe]

Risk taking tendencies aside, Sean Payton is a clear villain to a lot of fans here. He's kind of like the anti-fox. Offensive minded head coach with an extensive passing philosophy and a complicated offense, with a defense that isn't particularly dominant, especially when trying to stop the run but forces turnovers at the right time. Now that he has achieved the ultimate success in this game at least once, it's no surprise people on here are salty.

as long as people let their hatred prevent them from giving him the respect he's due you'll always have people arguing the less rational POV that fox is better.

[Mr. Scot]

Risk taking tendencies aside, Sean Payton is a clear villain to a lot of fans here. He's kind of like the anti-fox. Offensive minded head coach with an extensive passing philosophy and a complicated offense, with a defense that isn't particularly dominant, especially when trying to stop the run but forces turnovers at the right time. Now that he has achieved the ultimate success in this game at least once, it's no surprise people on here are salty.

as long as people let their hatred prevent them from giving him the respect he's due you'll always have people arguing the less rational POV that fox is better.

Success had made Payton into a bit of a prick even before the Super Bowl victory (some of his media dealings were the clearest evidence of that). Villain though? That's a bit much. Gregg Williams is probably closer to that mold than Payton.

Regardless, Payton can claim "coach of the year" status for winning the Super Bowl, but reality is that he benefited from a lot of things (luck included) to get there, same as any coach does.

That said, he's the same guy who went with a pass heavy plan against the Bears in their last NFCC appearance when the Bears were weaker against the run. Tony Dungy took the correct approach in the Super Bowl and won it.

Is he infallible? Far from it. He's made his fair share of mistakes, this year included.

Is he good? Absolutely. So are a lot of coaches who didn't win the Super Bowl this year, Fox included.

Better than Fox? He has the better accomplishment at this point, but that doesn't by itself mean anything for next season.

(and again, I say all that as a guy who wanted Fox gone)

[Claws]

Dare I say to the thread title.....no poo

[AceMan]

Sean Payton > John Fox

Anybody arguing otherwise, especially recently, needs to just let it go. John Fox is a decent coach, but Sean Payton is a better one.

[ChucktownK]

It's official: Sean Payton > John Fox

You have a superior grasp of the obvious.

[bubbadawg]

tree stump > John Fox

Yeah, I said it

[Johnny Rockets]

Heard Trent Dilfer (who I really like as an analyst) make a good point regarding Payton.....to paraphrase, he said he is one of those guys that is constantly changing and trying new things in order to continue to get better. Some work and some don't but he is always evolving. He said coaches that get to the point where they refuse to change and try new ideas are as good as done in the NFL. I think you can pick out those coaches in the NFL that seem to fit that mold.

[John Fox]

if they couldn't even dominate our vastly inferior team in 2003 than they wouldn't do it now. sb winners>>>>>>>super bowl losers.

The Gaytriots cheated like crazy, and you know that.

[Johnny Rockets]

The Gaytriots cheated like crazy, and you know that.

Probably trying to even the playing field since many of the Panthers were juiced up on steroids at that time. Selective memory?

[CatMan72]

the lombardi says payton

Nothing worse than a front-runner, isn't there a "New Orleans Huddle" site out there somewhere that you can go to gloat with your fellow Saints fans?

How bout we give you Delhomme and you send us Brees and we'll see how great of a coach Sean Payton really is?