When the coach came marching in. . .

METAIRIE, La. - First-year New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton knows, as much as anyone, that the old saying - "Be careful what you wish for, because it might come true" - can be chillingly prophetic.

The Saints play the Eagles tomorrow night in an NFC divisional playoff game in the Louisiana Superdome, and Payton reflected on the way things were then and are now.

As a kid in Newtown Square, where he lived in the 1970s, Payton was a fan of all the Philadelphia pro sports franchises. But his favorite team was the Eagles, for whom he imagined he one day would play quarterback.

Payton - whose family relocated to Chicago when he was 13 - set school passing records when he was at Eastern Illinois University, but, although he had a good head for the game, he was not very large and didn't have the requisite arm strength to impress NFL scouts. So he went undrafted, becoming for a time a football vagabond, sipping cups of coffee with the then-Chicago Bruisers, of the Arena Football League, Ottawa Rough Riders, of the Canadian Football League and Chicago's replacement "Spare Bears" in 1987, when the NFL players went on strike early that season.

But at no time did his ambitious hopes sink lower than a bit later in '87, when, after the replacement players were sent on their way, he accepted the position of player-coach for a British beer-league team, the Leicester Panthers.

"It wasn't so bad," said Payton, who drew up plays in his apartment before going out and trying to teach them to his Brit teammates on a nearby soccer field. "I got free housing, a free car and all the beer I could drink."

Now convinced that his path to the Super Bowl would be as a coach, not a player, Payton began making dozens of transatlantic telephone calls to American colleges, hoping to find one in need of an eager young man with a revised life plan.

San Diego State bit, putting Payton on a meandering, 11-year path as a college assistant that took him from San Diego State to Indiana State to San Diego State again to Miami (Ohio) and to Illinois.

Having paid all those dues, he finally got what he thought was his dream shot, as quarterbacks coach of the Eagles in 1997. At 33, he had made it to the real NFL, with the team he had followed so closely as a child.

All's well that ends well, right?

Except that Payton's two seasons with the Eagles were like booking passage on the Titanic. That 1997 team went 6-9-1, with quarterbacks Rodney Peete, Ty Detmer and Bobby Hoying shuffling in and out of the starting lineup in a bad version of musical chairs. Lousy as that was, though, it was heaven compared to '98, when, in Ray Rhodes' final season as head coach, the team went 3-13 and Hoying was sacked 35 times and intercepted nine times, without throwing a single touchdown pass.

When Rhodes was fired, so was his staff. Payton landed on his feet, orchestrating the New York Giants' passing offense from 1999 through 2002 before moving on to a similar position with the Dallas Cowboys from 2003 through '05.

So what did Payton take away from that 13-loss disaster with the Eagles?

"It's hard to go through a 3-13 season and get much from it," he said. "I guess you learn some not-to's."

And some what-to-do's, too. When Oakland Raiders owner Al Davis offered him the coaching job in 2004, Payton weighed his desire to become an NFL head coach against Davis' history of meddling. He told Davis thanks, but no thanks.

Then the Saints sounded him out about taking over a displaced, 3-13 outfit that would have been considered a laughingstock were it not for the tragic backdrop of New Orleans' Hurricane Katrina-ravaged landscape. But he would have a free hand, or as nearly close to it as it ever gets in the NFL.

"I was assured I would have a reasonable measure of control," said Payton, 43. "That was awfully important. If you don't have that, you're just a caretaker."

Payton, a noted workaholic, watched countless hours of tape before holding his first minicamp. He determined which players were going through the motions and which ones were "character" guys who would prosper in his more disciplined regime. And then he went about blowing up the roster and changing what he believed to be the team's negative mind-set.

* Step 1: Training camp was moved from the Saints' practice facility in Metairie to tiny Millsaps College in Jackson, Miss., about 165 miles to the northeast.

"The challenges in this city in terms of temptations are extraordinary," he said of New Orleans' reputation for nightlife hijinks. "At all hours of the day and night, you can always find Bourbon Street. That's why finding disciplined players is especially important."

* Step 2: Payton determined that his team would have no sacred cows, and that a player's talent level was not enough to ensure a roster spot. He quickly traded, released or allowed to leave in free agency several starters, including quarterback Aaron Brooks, left tackle Wayne Gandy and middle linebacker Courtney Watson.

A starting wide receiver, Donté Stallworth, now with the Eagles, missed much of the team's offseason program with a shoulder injury. That was no surprise; Stallworth had missed so many games during his four seasons with the team that his derisive nickname among media members covering the team was "Street Clothes." When Stallworth was late for a team meeting, Payton dropped him to the second unit on the depth chart and shortly thereafter traded him to the Eagles for linebacker Mark Simoneau.

One of former coach Jim Haslett's favorites was Gandy, who fancied himself a team leader. When Payton saw that Gandy had a big recliner in front of his locker, the new coach asked a locker-room attendant, "Did we buy this for him or did he?" Told that Gandy had bought the recliner, Payton said, "Then take it out of there, put it in his car and tell him if it's still here tomorrow, we'll throw it away."

Shortly thereafter, the Saints threw Gandy away, in a manner of speaking, dealing him to Atlanta.

* Step 3: It didn't take long for Payton to determine that the very athletic and rifle-armed Brooks, who had the disconcerting habit of smiling on the sideline after throwing interceptions or fumbling the ball away, did not possess the requisite leadership qualities for the position. Especially when Drew Brees, who was coming off a torn labrum in his right shoulder, became available in free agency. The Saints signed him to a 6-year, $60-million contract that at the time was considered more than a little risky.

"Initially, he wasn't even on the radar because he was on another team [San Diego]," Payton said. "Then when it became apparent he might be available, you look at the things he's been able to accomplish.

"He was a guy in high school that won the state championship. He went to Purdue and took them to three bowl games, including the Rose Bowl. He was a part of turning that program around. He went to San Diego and shortly thereafter the Chargers are in the playoffs. That success had followed him, and not by accident."

The proof of Payton's vision is, as they say, in the pudding. Simoneau is starting at middle linebacker. The guy who replaced Gandy at the all-important left-tackle position, second-year pro Jammal Brown, will start in the Pro Bowl. Rookie Marques Colston, the seventh-round pick out of Hofstra, took over for Stallworth and caught 70 passes for 1,038 yards and eight TD.

Brees - the smallish, smart quarterback who might have reminded Payton of himself - passed for 4,418 yards and 26 TDs, with only 11 picks, and was voted first-team All-Pro.

Most significantly, the Saints - with 26 new faces from last season's roster - are 10-6 and are a trendy pick to represent the NFC in Super Bowl XLI, an almost-unthinkable turnaround from 2005.

"Coach Payton has created a real winning atmosphere," Brees said. "I wasn't here last year, so I don't know what it was like, but I've heard stories.

"A lot of these guys probably felt beaten down. For coach Payton to come in here and reverse that attitude, to make everybody on this team feel like he has a key role, that's really something." *