Saints coach Sean Payton, who suffered a broken leg and torn MCL on Sunday after getting hit on the sideline by tight end Jimmy Graham, has now suffered a little turnabout at the hands of his players.
According to Mike Triplett of the New Orleans Times-Picayune (via NFL.com), Payton has given a china doll to injured players for years. Most recently, cornerback Tracy Porter received the doll during training camp.
And Porter has now put the doll on Payton’s desk with this message: “Return to sender.”
“A china doll’s very fragile, and it’s rare that you don’t have one that’s not broken, an arm or something,” Payton said, “so early in the season, I had to place that china doll on the lockers of a few of our players, and when I got home last night here in the building, there were a lot of cookies, balloons, a lot of cool stuff and then on my desk was a note with that return to sender, so our players and coaches and everybody have been great.”
Given that Payton has been taunting his players with a china doll, he may want to check their lockers for a voodoo doll with a pin stuck in the knee area and a mouthful of Juicy Fruit gum.