Gregg Williams always admired Drew Brees’ talent. Now he gets to use it for a different purpose than he once considered years ago.

“I wanted to draft Drew Brees when I was head coach of the Buffalo Bills,” says Williams, now in his first season as the New Orleans Saints defensive coordinator. “One of the reasons I’m here is that we didn’t draft Drew Brees with the Bills.”

The journey was hardly quite that direct. Williams coached the Bills from 2001-03, compiling a 17-31 record and no winning seasons. Williams replaced the abruptly-fired Wade Phillips, who is the last coach to have guided the Buffalonians to the postseason (1999).

When the Bills dismissed Williams, he came to the Washington Redskins as Joe Gibbs’ assistant head coach and defensive coordinator and the Redskins played some pretty good ball for Williams. In his first season the club ranked third in the league in total defense. The Redskins made the playoffs in 2005 for the first time since ’99 (there’s that year again) on the strength of a defense that allowed an average of 11.7 points over the final six games.

Gibbs’ exit, however, ultimately led to Williams’ as well. The Redskins interviewed him as a possible replacement, then released him from his contract. He was with the Jacksonville Jaguars last year and now takes on another reclamation project in the Saints.

Brees, of course, figures again in Williams’ fate. Each day in practice, a defense looking for massive improvement and its personality faces an assault by the quarterback who nearly broke Dan Marino’s single-season passing yardage record in 2008. Brees passed for 5,069 yards, 15 short of Marino’s total in 1984 but that was not enough to lift the Saints any higher than last place in the NFC South with an 8-8 record.

The Saints were like a team at war with themselves. They scored 463 points to lead the NFL. They allowed 393, a figure eclipsed only by the Kansas City Chiefs (440) and the Detroit Lions (517). They led the league in total offense but ranked 23rd in defense.

That put an end to Gary Gibbs’ three-year reign as defensive coordinator and first-year defensive line coach Ed Orgeron, who was supposed to fire up the pass rush, also departed. The Saints reached out to Williams, who has coached defenses to top 10 rankings five times in the last nine years.

Williams on defense. Brees on offense. Each working to make the other better. Each working to make this team better. The Saints reached the NFC championship game at the end of the 2006 season but they’ve missed the playoffs the last two years, mostly because of their defensive failings. Had Brees not been ensconced at quarterback, Williams might well have looked elsewhere for his next job.

“He understands how important it is to compete,” Williams says. “In order to win in this league, once you get to the playoffs, you have to have a field general that can navigate through some unbelievably stressful situations. He was a big part of me going ahead and making that final decision to come here.”

Williams, 51, brings a fierce attitude and fat playbook to the Saints. Those two attributes can work for and against him. As Redskins linebacker Rocky McIntosh says, “He had about 600 pages in that playbook and he could call anything at any time.”

The attitude never quits. The Saints defenders chase every loose ball that hits the ground, be it a fumble or an incomplete pass.

“They’re just forming good habits,” Brees says. “Any ball that’s on the ground, they’re picking it up and running with it just to get used to that mentality. In a game, you see a ball on the ground and you snatch it up and run with it. I think that’s a very opportunistic type of mentality.”

The Saints, weak in the secondary the past two years, ought to be better with the addition of cornerback Malcolm Jenkins, their No. 1 pick, and free-agent safety Darren Sharper. Jenkins, however, is still unsigned. They also get promising Tracy Porter back after his rookie season was cut short by injury. Williams like having eight players competing at cornerback.

He may need to find some answers elsewhere for a pass rush that doesn’t live up to its talent. Defensive ends Will Smith and Charles Grant are facing suspensions for four weeks by the NFL for violating the substance-abuse policies in the ong-going Starcaps case.

“You’ll see defensive tackles move out and defensive ends move inside. We’re going to have enough guys to show up and play on opening day against Detroit,” Williams says.

The Lions may not be the ultimate test. An 0-16 team a year ago, they have a new coach (Jim Schwartz) and might be starting a rookie quarterback in Matthew Stafford. They have not won a game since Dec. 23, 2007.

Hey, the Saints have to start somewhere. Nothing wrong with a confidence builder on day one.

-- Around the NFL

• Staying home: Does anyone remember the old Cheese League, that aggregation of teams that went to Wisconsin for training camp? Not too long ago, that was the way of things. Team packed themselves off to a remote college campus for a month of bonding and general isolation. Wisconsin boasted the Green Bay Packers (practicing in Green Bay but bunking in nearby DePere at St. Norbert’s College), the Saints (LaCrosse), the Chicago Bears (Platteville), the Chiefs (River Falls) and even the Jacksonville Jaguars (Stevens Point) one year. The Packers remain bound to their little corner of northeastern Wisconsin but the others are all gone, except for the Chiefs, and they’re in their final season at River Falls, about 30 miles east of Minneapolis. As teams bargained with state and local municipalities for money for new or renovated training facilities and stadium repairs or construction, those civic bodies asked them to spend more time at home. Makes sense. Dollars too. The Greater Green Bay Convention and Visitors Bureau says Packers training camp and Packers Family Night at Lambeau Field on Saturday will draw 100,000 visitors and pump $25-30 million into the local economy.

• Moving around: The final figures on free agency are in. The NFL says 128 unrestricted free agents changed teams this year, a number very much in line with the recent past. In 2008, 132 UFAs moved, with 126 on the go in 2007. Here’s the statistical oddity--for the first time since the free agency system began in 1993, no player other than a UFA changed teams. No franchise players, transition players or restricted free agents left their old employer for a new gig. There has been less interest by the clubs in trying to sign players for whom they might have to offer draft-pick compensation. Eight restricted free agents changed teams in 1993; there have only been seven of those moves over the last three years and none of them were in ’09.

• No mulligan: There’s no do-over for the off-season, no second chance to fix the mistakes. As Minnesota Vikings coach Brad Childress says, “There are no rear-view mirrors on the golf carts.” That would be the carts scooting around training camp in Mankato, Minn., where the quarterback situation is dicey at best. The Vikings traded to acquire Sage Rosenfels (once a Redskin) to compete with Tarvaris Jackson and then played the waiting game with a retired Brett Favre, who defied all the odds by actually staying retired (for now). The question here is: Why didn’t the Vikings chase Jeff Garcia when he was a free agent? Perfect fit for this offense. He ran it in Philadelphia in 2006 when Donovan McNabb was injured, started six games and threw 10 touchdown passes and two interceptions. Ran virtually the same offense the last two years with Tampa Bay. Garcia instead signed with Oakland to back up JaMarcus Russell. Minnesota went into the off-season a quarterback away from being a very serious Super Bowl contender and did not change that. Then again, maybe they knew something about the 39-yar-old Garcia. He has a strained calf and isn’t practicing.
   

Larry Weisman covered professional football for USA TODAY for 25 years and now joins the Redskins Broadcast Network and Redskins.com to bring his unique viewpoint and experience to Redskins fans. Go to Redskins.com for the Redskins Blitz column and NFL Blitz on Friday. Larry also appears on Redskins Nation, airing nightly on Comcast SportsNet, and on ESPN 980 AM radio.