At 5 a.m. in New Orleans, even Bourbon Street is asleep. The inky pre-dawn sky is eerily still. The sidewalks are deserted, the cracked and peeling storefront shutters are all closed up tight and the empty, wet pavement reflects the galaxy of neon signs that line the street. Save for a few drug dealers and one or two beered-up zombies chilling in the shadows, the busiest street in the world looks like an abandoned movie set. The hum of neon and the groan of a garbage truck are the only audible signs of life. The French Quarter is in full repose.

Meanwhile, roughly 10 miles away, inside the Saints practice facility, it's a madhouse.

They don't burn the candle at both ends in the NFL. They soak it in gas and torch it with a flamethrower. In fact, you could probably walk into any NFL training center before sunup and see the same thing: amped up A-personality coaches and players geeked on equal amounts of adrenaline, fear and competitive fire, refusing to concede to something as silly as sleep. In the NFL, insomnia and sleep deprivation are badges of honor.

In Oakland, when coach Jon Gruden and QB Rich Gannon take a day to sleep in and be lazy, they still arrive before 5. In San Diego, a group called "The Breakfast Club", led by LB Junior Seau, meets in the early a.m. to lift weights. Cincy linebacker Takeo Spikes and fullback Lorenzo Neal like to get a workout in on the team's underwater treadmill before 7:30 a.m. Dom Capers used to sleep on a couch in his office when he was head coach in Carolina. And when he was head coach in Philly, Ray Rhodes' eyes always seemed to be squeezed tight like soda-machine coin slots, from staying up for days at a time.

Back in New Orleans at the Saints' facility, as I slam my car door, birds that were peacefully chirping in a nearby tree scatter into the air like buckshot. "Good," I think, "if I have to get up this freakin' early so should every other living creature on the planet." I mean, I became a sportswriter specifically to avoid things like the sunrise.

Thankfully, once inside the Saints facility I am armed with a giant jar of java, which I, of course, nearly spill on coach Jim Haslett as he exits the team's weight room. He's carrying a newspaper, a towel and some game-plan scribblings and his shirt is soaked in sweat. He is wired and friendly. Damn him.

"Can't sleep either, huh, coach?"

"No, no," Haslett says. "I've been in here since 4. That's when I usually get in."

"Okay well," I mumble while sipping my coffee, "I can scratch NFL head coach off my list of dream jobs."

I then make my way down the darkened hallway and into the Saints weight room, a part of the facility that is normally off-limits to the media. (That, or no one else is dumb enough to get up this early.) It hits me like a tornado-siren snooze alarm: bright fluorescent lights, SportsCenter blasting from every TV and an overhead speaker system taxed by Jay-Z's arrhythmic bass.

I shake hands with the Saints weightlifting coach, Rock Gullickson. But too tired to properly defend myself and still worried about some idle threats to include me in this workout, I refrain from making fun of his name.

Instead I watch as a group of D-linemen, led by 315-pound tackle Norman Hand, tape up their wrists and hit the incline bench. Nicknamed "Heavy Lunch" by his teammates, Hand, who swallows more double-teams (and large pizzas) than anyone else in the NFL, starts brushing 335 pounds off his chest with the kind of nonchalance the rest of us use to dust our lapels.

Hand's parents, Walter and Deloris, were early risers in Walterboro, S.C., and they used to get him out of bed every day at 6. (Walter worked for UPS and Deloris was a social worker.) So this is nothing new or extraordinary for him. His son, Norm Jr., would wake him up by 5:30 a.m. most days anyway. And without traffic his normally 20-minute commute is cut almost in half.

"This workout is perfect for D-linemen," says Hand. "Because we work in the shadows doing the dirty work anyhow."

But while Hand and fellow D-linemen Martin Chase and Willie Whitehead are here, the group does not include Pro Bowl tackle La'Roi Glover. The night before at dinner I asked him if I'd see him here this morning. "Uh ... hell no," he said with a laugh.

The players that are here talk trash, slap high-fives and rack their weights in a way that makes the floor shake. On the wall there is an ink board filled with instructions from Gullickson written in red, blue and black ink. Next to the board is a giant clicking-ticking-nit-picking clock -- just in case I forget how early it was.

"Work hard this morning, let's work hard," shouts Whitehead, whose words are met by what can only be described as thunderous flatulence. Oh, the wonders of the NFL, will they never cease?

The players throw some dumbbells around, do some work on their tri's and then lie on their backs (is it nap time?) and catch and toss a medicine ball off their chest 50 times. Or maybe 100. Or maybe 125. I forgot to count. Next they pick up weights and while sitting on the floor (nap time? nap time? is it nap time?) with their feet off the ground, twist back and forth 50 times or so. Or maybe 100. Or maybe 125. Dammit.

Often in this very space I am critical of football players and a society that overly glorifies and rewards them. The benefit of getting up before the roosters to watch these guys work so hard for so long so early is that it helps you realize most NFL employees earn every penny they make. The smart ones realize their time in fantasy world is finite and so they try to squeeze out the most they can by saving things like sleep for retirement. Rhodes used to say he lived his life as if there was a loaded gun pointed at his head. Is that sick -- or enlightened?

"The average fan probably still thinks we work one day a week," says Hand, a former Charger. "But I've been to the bottom and I never want to go back there again. So I'll work hard, get up early, do whatever it takes. 'Cause I don't want to go back there -- it's extremely lonely there."

After his workout Hand grabbed a quick shower and a fried-egg sandwich before hitting the film room for some study time. The sun was just beginning to warm up the windows on the far side of the weight room. The sky was turning a dark shade of blue. Planes were beginning to fly at the nearby airport. Delivery trucks crowded the streets. Around the NFL most coaches and a good deal of players had already completed a full shift.

And in an hour or so, your alarm will go off.

David Fleming is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at flemfile@aol.com.