Payton named top coach
Sean Payton might have had the toughest coaching job in football this season, making his selection Saturday as the Associated Press NFL Coach of the Year that much more impressive.
Payton, in his first year as a head coach, didn’t just lead the New Orleans Saints to a 10-6 record, the NFC South championship and a first-round playoff bye. He helped revitalize a battered city’s spirit.
With New Orleans ravaged by Hurricane Katrina in late August 2005, the Saints became nomads that year, winding up 3-13 under Jim Haslett. Payton, an assistant coach in Dallas, was hired to revive one of the NFL’s historically unsuccessful franchises.
Payton and his team gave the city – indeed, the entire Gulf Coast – something it desperately needed: a reason to smile.
And hopes for the Saints’ first Super Bowl appearance.
“It’s just been the right mix of guys who believe in each other,” said Payton, who ran away in the balloting by a nationwide panel of 50 sports writers and broadcasters who cover the NFL. “Players putting the team ahead of everything else. I think that’s the biggest thing that we’ve been able to do to date. That’s what’s most important. That’s what we were looking for in the off-season: character, toughness, those are things you win with.”
Payton received 44 votes in a season when there were a half-dozen outstanding coaching performances. Eric Mangini of the New York Jets, another first-year head coach, got three votes, while San Diego’s Marty Schottenheimer, the 2004 winner, received two. Jeff Fisher of Tennessee got one.
No coach ever was faced with rebuilding a roster while his community was recovering from such devastation.
“You have to trust your gut a lot and follow your heart,” Payton said. “There certainly were going to be some challenges coming into this region at this time. But I think the city is very committed to this team and it’s really an amazing fan base we have, not just in New Orleans, but in this whole Gulf South area.”
Broncos eulogize teammate
Thousands of friends, family members, teammates and fans attended the funeral for charismatic Denver Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams who was killed in a drive-by shooting on New Year’s Day.
“I’ve never seen a little man with so much heart and so much fire,” Broncos linebacker Al Wilson said at the three-hour service at Great Commission Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas. “He touched my heart and always will.”
When Williams’ longtime girlfriend, Tierria Leonard, walked past his open casket, Williams’ 7-year-old son, Darius, dressed in a navy pinstripe suit, cried uncontrollably just as he had at the memorial service Friday night.
Williams is also survived by a 4-year-old daughter, Jaelyn.
Broncos running back Tatum Bell, who played with Williams at Oklahoma State, broke down as he spoke at the service.
“I’m just glad D was in my life,” he said through sobs as Wilson comforted him by his side.