WHITE SULPHUR SPRINGS, W.Va. – If anyone is having more fun at training camp than the New Orleans Saints' Drew Brees and Sean Payton, it’s hard to tell.
Brees tweeted out a picture Thursday of what he described as Payton’s “payback” -- a Rogaine logo on Brees’ jersey in place of the usual Chevron sponsorship logo on each practice jersey.
What's wrong with this picture?! Sean Payton got me this morning. #Payback pic.twitter.com/vvcnqLnj1I
— Drew Brees (@drewbrees) July 31, 2014It was a shot at Brees’ receding hairline (the one part of Brees’ body that admittedly doesn’t make him feel like a 25-year-old). It was also redemption for the Chevron patch that was sewn onto Payton’s T-shirt before the first practice.
That competitive spirit is also on display after every practice when the quarterbacks get together for various inventive passing challenges. They have become must-see viewing, especially now that Brees has begun narrating them for the team’s website.
Payton and the offensive coaches occasionally join in – like he did for this recent competition inspired by the former television show, “American Gladiators.”
Others have involved throwing deep balls from a nearby balcony or replicating a skeet-shooting trip they took when they first arrived in West Virginia.
“It’s a group effort,” Brees said when asked how they come up with the challenges. “But we try to incorporate something that happened in practice that day. For example, we had a quarterback competition out there that involved throwing on the run. We missed a couple of throws on the run [in that day’s practice], so obviously it’s something we’ve got to work on. But we can have fun with it too, so we made a competition out of it, set up some bags and throw at them. There’s going to be a winner and three losers.”