Mainly because I sort of needed to get it out of me.

Fox’s Jay Glazer is doing a story on the relationship between the Saints organization and their fans on their pre-game show today:

For the story, Glazer and a camera crew rode in Payton’s car through the throng that met the team at the airport after a road win.

“I love the story of this team with the fans, what they’ve gone through, how they’ve walked the road together to get here, ” Glazer said. “It’s one of the cooler moments of my reporting career. I said to Sean, ‘The rest of the country needs to see this. It’s wild.’”

Glazer said he had a chance to talk to several players in advance of witnessing the homecoming ritual, and came away impressed with how sincerely moved they all were by the Who Dat love they’d been receiving.

“Nobody was like, ‘Oh, man, wait until you see these freaks, ‘” he said. “It was more like, ‘Wait till you see the love they shower us with after a game.’ It wasn’t, ‘Man, what a pain in the neck to get through.’ It was, ‘Jay, wait till you see this. It’s special. It’s amazing.’ One guy said, ‘I’ve been all over this league and I’ve never seen anything like this.’

“You get a lot of stuck-up players around the NFL, who kind of act like they’re above everybody. These players and coaches didn’t. They really appreciate that love you get.

“I think it’s part of the sale now. They can sell that to free agents. ‘You’re going to feel something.’ One thing that Sean said to me is, ‘As a coach, you have no idea you’re signing up for this. We sign up to be coaches, to coach football. We didn’t know about this part. This part is surreal.’

“He’ll tell his grandchildren about this. We talked a lot about that. He’s excited to tell his grandkids about this special time.”