The Saints don't just have the Washington Football Team and continued personnel losses to battle in Week 5; the weather is also on coach Sean Payton's mind.
With a 54% chance of rain in D.C. on Sunday, the Saints have been doing wet ball drills and preparing for a game out in inclement weather for the first time this season. The team also reviewed tape from Washington's game against the L.A. Rams in the rain last year to pick up tips on how the natural grass field holds up under the elements.
"Obviously it’s an important game and there’s a good chance of rain ... so the conditions will be important if it’s that type of game,” Payton said in his final press conference before the team ships out on the road for the fourth time in five weeks.
But there'll be a lot more happening on the field than just precipitation, with the Saints hopeful to right the ship (again) after a deflating loss and head into their early bye week with a winning record.
Scroll below for more from Payton's press conference ahead of the Week 5 matchup, and check out the video at the top of the page for his full comments. Subscribe to WWL Sports on YouTube for more content updated daily.
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ON BUILDING TRUST WITH QB JAMEIS WINSTON
“Well, some of that is game-related. it’s hard to explain, but you’re watching a game unfold relative to: How’s the other side of the ball playing? How are we playing in the kicking game? If you just took a strict analytical approach to third downs and fourth downs, etc., I think the flaw in that would be that there are other outside factors. And that would be, obviously, the field conditions, how’s the other side of the ball playing.
"So a lot of that goes into decisions we make, whether they’re aggressive or less aggressive. But he’s doing a real good job with diving into this week, each week’s plan, and understanding initially what we think it takes to win. That could change, and I thought he played well last week. So, yea, a lot of that is week-to-week just relative to how aggressive we approach a game in any phase, and even in the kicking game."
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WERE YOU HIGH ON WFT RUNNING BACK ANTONIO GIBSON COMING OUT OF MEMPHIS?
“Yea, absolutely. It’s always interesting to watch these guys.
"The difficult ones are the players you knew you had a real, real high grade on and you just weren’t in a position to draft him. And then, it didn’t mean they were early picks. It might mean you had a high grade in the fourth round or the third round. And then your gut is right and you see him excelling somewhere else, and you hope that it’s just in the AFC. So I think we, going through the evaluation process, spent a lot of time on these players. And so to see, sometimes, players end up in a role, maybe, that was different than you expected is always interesting. That would be something that happens every year, though. You’re just paying attention.
"The ones you don’t regret but you look more at are the ones you don’t feel like you had a clear enough evaluation on and all of a sudden they’re surfacing somewhere as a really good player, and you’re like, ‘man, let me see the reports. Why did we possibly miss that?’ It’s easier to just know sometimes you’re going to lose a good player because you just weren’t in that position to pick them.”
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HOW ARE ARMSTEAD AND MCCOY PROGRESSING FROM THEIR INJURIES?
“They’re doing well. They’re obviously important parts to that group.
"That being said, man, when we drafted Cesar there was a vision of center/guard, and center has been what he’s played most of all his life. He’s transitioned there well. And then James is someone that, look, he’s just played a lot of football games. … So I think it’s a position of strength of ours and that has served us well with two important players being hurt.”
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ON WINSTON/RUIZ HANDLING NOISE ON THE ROAD
“The biggest thing is just, this would be considerable, the crowd noise, the silent snap count, the nuances. With 15 years of Drew doing that and now you have another quarterback. What are the differences relative to your silent snap counts, how many do you have? You don’t always just lift your a and get the ball. You’re trying to offset the crowd noise, but the defense can get a jump on the snap — especially this week with these two ends.
"So I think there’s an awful lot of communication between those two, and where the protection’s going. And fortunately both of them are smart.”
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