Sean Payton says Saints can’t be motivated by bounty gate
By Mike Dyce
The New Orleans Saints had an off year for them last season. Most of it probably stems from the turmoil around bounty gate and the resulting suspensions to players and head coach Sean Payton. However, Payton wants to leave that in the Saints past and doesn’t want to use it as motivation for their 2013 season.
“We’re driven and motivated to win but it can’t come out of spite or anger towards the league office or the Commissioner,” Payton said, via Pro Football Talk. “I think it’s something that has to be in the rear view mirror. And our focus has to be on the things we have to do to improve. There’s a lot of areas from a year ago that we have to be better at if we’re going to aspire to do that.”
It would be easy to use it as motivation, it has that un-fair chip on the shoulder response built into it. More importantly they probably don’t want to keep talking about it or answering questions about it. Taking this anti-bounty gate stance, at least publicly, could be an effort to try and move past that blemish on the Saints organization.