During the 2009 playoffs, Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams supplied the words, and his players provided the actions. They pummeled quarterbacks Kurt Warner and Brett Favre in the NFC tournament, and they confounded -- and ultimately overcame -- quarterback Peyton Manning in the Super Bowl.
Williams’ comments prompted coach Sean Payton to give the former Bills coach sand, peanut butter, and crackers at a team meal prior to the Super Bowl, in the hopes of shutting Williams up.
With the 2010 season approaching, Williams is talking again.
"[W]e have to send messages to every offense about how physical it’s going to be when they play us,” Williams told USA Today, via WCCO. “Those messages are out there, starting with No. 4.”
It’s unclear whether Williams was referring to the messages sent last January, with a series of “remember me” hits that may have prompted Favre to eventually forget his name, or whether Williams was saying that they plan to do it again in September.
Regardless, it’s safe to say that they plan to do it again in September.
And the Vikings are brushing off Williams’ threat against their quarterback. “Those are just meathead comments,” defensive end Jared Allen told WCCO. “You know what, it is what it is. People trying to get their team fired up. They’re trying not to let a successful season get to them . . . at the end of the day people are going to talk with their pads and we’ll see how things happen down in New Orleans.”
Here’s the problem, as it applies to the Vikings. Last time around, Favre had the entire offseason to recover from the beating he took, and he’ll apparently need every last second of it to do so. If the Saints hit him like that in September, he could be retiring before Week 2 even starts.
