New Orleans Saints Head Coach Sean Payton
Conference Call with New Orleans Media
Thursday, November 5, 2020

You brought in Antonio Brown for a workout less than a year ago. Does that help yyou at all when you're trying to prepare for him, or not really?
"No, I don't think so. Look, we had a chance to visit and we had interest and yet, the challenge really wasn't whether or not we wanted to sign him or not, it was that he just at that point wasn't cleared to play from the league standpoint. So I don't think our visit with him helps us relative to seeing him or knowing (a lot about him). There's plenty of film and I think the key is just trying to quickly adjust to where he aligns and what personnel groups he's on the field and where they're playing him."

It seems that your offense has found a pretty good rhythm as the seasons gone along. And then whenever you're able to add back in all the personnel, Michael Thomas, Emmanuel Sanders, do you feel pretty good about the direction this offense is heading into the second half of the season?
"Yeah, we'll see. There's some things that I think we're doing better. And yet I think there is a lot of work still ahead of us to be as efficient as we would like to be. Last week we did the things we needed to do to win that game. Each week, it presents a different challenge. And so look, I'm excited these guys are back and I think that certainly there's additional targets. Now it's up to us to be more consistent and take advantage of it."

How do you feel that an Emmanuel (Sanders) looked yesterday at practice just having gone through what he said he went through?
"Yeah, good. I think I know what he went through. And I think it was the exact same thing I went through and he feels fine."

Devin White looks like he's having a great season, what kind of challenges does he present when you're looking at that defense and game planning?
"Yeah, he presents a lot of challenges. He is having a great year. It's hard to get your eight and nine hole or wide zone or wide plays run. He's so good and fast over the top. He's good in coverage, he gives them great flexibility, he can match up with the runner, he can match up and the other thing that I think it goes a little under undervalued is he's a good pressure player. He's had pass rush success and he's someone that I think has a knack for that so he's having a great year."

We didn't get a chance to ask you about this the other day, but with the competition committee, there's some word coming out there that they were considering going to a 16-team playoff. What were your thoughts about that?
"Well, forget my thoughts for a second. It's strictly in the event that we're not able to finish games. In other words, the total games that we're looking to play as a league I think is 256 if I'm not mistaken, that means every team has played their 16 games. This plan B if you will would be in the event that the teams hadn't been able to finish the complete 16 game schedule then it would kind of go (in) this direction."

Have you noticed team's doing anything different because of the success Alvin (Kamara's) been having as a pass catcher this year?
"Well, the team we're playing for instance (Buccaneers), in the red area and third down they've doubled. They doubled Mike (Thomas), they doubled Alvin and Todd (Bowles) understands and knows brackets coverage and so they trapped him basically linebacker safety and then same way safety defensive back over the top of Mike and then quickly you've got to process that and then know where the singles are in. That happened in the red area more. I think this, he's seeing more and more blitzes coming out of the backfield. So if he lines up to one end before that end rushes, he'll look to reroute them. So there's a handful of things that that that we're having to deal with, and that's part of his success.