By New Orleans Owner Tom Benson Says Sean Payton Will Be the Motivation to Get the Saints to the Super Bowl
July 31, 2012 – 8:00 am by Chris Fedor
The New Orleans Saints are about to embark on a very difficult season. As they opened up training camp, one key person was missing from the practice field, suspended head coach Sean Payton. The mastermind of the Saints offense was suspended by the entire season for his alleged role in Bounty Gate. Even though, Payton wasn’t there, his presence was still felt. Owner Tom Benson came up with an idea to hang a huge picture of Payton that read “Do your job.” Benson is hoping that, even though Payton will be missing from the sidelines, the team will be motivated by the presence of their suspended leader that marched them to a Super Bowl win a few years ago.
Tom Benson joined WWL in New Orleans to talk about the excitement surrounding the New Orleans Saints, the worldwide support the Saints have received, why he decided to put up the picture of Sean Payton at training camp and his expectations for the Hornets now that he has taken over ownership of the hoops squad.
On the excitement surrounding the New Orleans Saints:
“Nobody could believe this. We go back ten years, what this community has done, embracing this football team, people used to talk about Pittsburgh or Green Bay or something, now they don’t mean nothing compared to what we have here.”
On the worldwide support of the Saints:
“I think you’re right because I get the same thing. I get letters from all over the world, notes and I pass that on to the coaches and stuff to tell them ‘hey this is an international team now.”
Why he decided to put up the picture of Sean Payton at training camp:
“They’re busy with what they’re doing and they didn’t notice it but when we pushed them over that way. All of the sudden, even tears in the eyes of some of the players, this is going to be our motivation to get us in the Super Bowl in New Orleans.”
What he expects from the Hornets now that he has taken over ownership:
“As a matter of fact the Hornets coach and General Manager are out there taking a look at what we do in that regard and we feel like we’re going to put a good team together. We don’t know if we’re there yet because we have rookies and we can’t know how to feed them in yet but we sure have some fine people and we’ve kept some good players. I think we certainly are not going to be on the bottom I can assure you that, we’re going to be close to the top.”
Listen to Tom Benson on WWL in New Orleans here (Audio begins 16:30 into the podcast)
Tags: New Orleans Saints, NFL, Sean Payton, Tom Benson, WWL in New Orleans
Post a Comment
Name (required)
E-mail (will not be published) (required)
Website
Comments