Sean Payton's banishment brings thoughts of long ago era
"Extreme Danger," screamed the headline on the front page of the
New Orleans Levee newspaper, as the former (for now) coach of
the Saints sat there in a "Free Sean Payton" shirt.  "During his
imprisonment," The Levee told us, "Payton will spend 24 hours a
day in a damp stone cell with a single plexiglass wall bearing a
slot through which he will be fed and given weekly divisional
rankings during the 2012 season."  "You have no idea how
cunningly dangerous he is," said the Levee's cunningly clever
piece, quoting NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. "If he attempts
to pass you anything, do not accept it. It could be offensive
play diagrams, or maybe bounty payments."  Such is the football
world Sean Payton has built for himself, and the Saints, during
the countdown to another Super Bowl that will be played in, of
all places, the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.  I look at that picture
of Payton, unshaven, eyes down, and I think back to May 3, 1814,
to how Napoleon mu