Drew Brees' contract is not among Sean Payton’s greatest concerns this offseason.
For one thing, the New Orleans Saints coach expressed confidence that a Brees extension will get done “very easily” and “uneventfully,” as he said in interviews Thursday with the NFL Network and Pro Football Talk.
Also, Payton and the Saints have bigger fish to fry.
“When I go to sleep, I’m not thinking about that issue as much as I’m thinking about the direction we’re going at offensive guard, the direction we’re going to improve our defense and defensive front seven,” Payton told PFT.
He followed up by telling the NFL Network, “I go to bed at night thinking about our defense. ... especially our front seven, there’s some areas we have to address.”
When asked by PFT’s Mike Florio if defensive line ranks first among them, Payton said, “More specifically it’s pass rush. The team that can force that quarterback to throw it on 2-Mississippi rather than 3-Mississippi, that’s pretty big. And I think we saw that in the [Super Bowl].”
Payton also did an interview with the Saints’ team website while making the media rounds at the NFL scouting combine in Indianapolis.
He suggested that the Saints will use both the draft and free agency to shore up those areas of need. And he repeated what many draft analysts have said, that this year’s draft class appears to have an impressive amount of defensive-line depth.
“We have to improve our defense, so the six picks we have this year, we’ve gotta be spot-on with them,” Payton told the Saints’ site.
Payton also had a great line in that interview about the difficulty of learning about a player’s makeup during the combine interview process.
“Look, these guys are coached up and they’re well-schooled," Payton said. "Sometimes you’ll sit in on an interview room and feel like you’re getting a pageant answer from Miss Texas."
