Jeff Duncan

NASHVILLE, TENN. – When New Orleans Saints Coach Sean Payton arrives at LP Field for Thursday night’s exhibition game against the Tennessee Titans, three things will be laid out neatly on the desk in his office:

The laminated play sheet with the catalogue of plays the coaching staff plans to use in the game.

The red flag he’ll use to challenge officials’ calls.

Two neat stacks of Wrigley’s Juicy Fruit gum.

Each stack will contain five sticks, one for each drive of each half. Payton will not take the field until he has stashed the sticks into his pocket. He breaks out a new stick to start each offensive series. If the Saints enjoy more than five drives in a half or the game goes into overtime, the equipment staff keeps a reserve supply in a tray behind the bench.

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Mike Triplett, The Times-Picayune

New Orleans Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma was in Philadelphia on Monday for a second opinion on his groin injury, but the Saints are confident that he’ll be right back where he’s supposed to be — in the middle of their defense — come Sept. 9 when they play the Minnesota Vikings in the regular-season opener at the Superdome.

“Certainly, he’ll be out this week,” Coach Sean Payton said of New Orleans’ preseason finale at Tennessee on Thursday night. “But I think we’re optimistic that he’s going to be able to start up practice when we get going Sunday (for) next week. But we’re going to have to spend a lot of time here in the next six, seven days with treatment and all the things necessary.”

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By Pat Yasinskas

We’re going to resume our series of NFC South position rankings with the defensive ends.

This is not exactly a position of strength entering the season, but I think that could change as time goes on. There are a lot of young defensive ends around the division and some of them are bound to rise up as the season goes on. For the moment, though, there aren’t a lot of sure things.

Once again, I’m basing my rankings on talks with coaches, scouts, front-office folks and players. Here we go.
Can you guess who # 1 is ??? Well click here now to find out.

James Varney

New Orleans Saints quarterback Chase Daniel and receiver Adrian Arrington have been a dynamic duo during the preseason, hooking up for big plays and making strong cases for spots on the team’s 53-man roster.

Oddly enough, though, they’ve actually been competing against each other the whole time.

A third quarterback and a sixth receiver might be considered “luxuries” for the Saints when they make their final roster cuts at the end of this week, especially since neither Daniel nor Arrington contribute on special teams.

So as well as they’ve played this summer, they’re both wobbling on the proverbial bubble, along with players like tight end Tory Humphrey, fullback Zak Keasey, defensive ends Junior Galette and Bobby McCray and defensive backs Leigh Torrence and Chip Vaughn, among several others.

The Saints need to cut two players by Tuesday, then another 22 by Saturday

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Jeff Duncan

We all know life in post-Katrina New Orleans is an oft-maddening good-news, bad-news existence.

One day, optimism abounds. The next you wonder whether the city will ever turn the corner.

The same can be said for preseason football.

For every positive sign, there’s a contrasting negative one.

In the middle of it all, it’s difficult to really tell what you have or where you’re going.

After Friday night’s 36-21 victory against San Diego, the good news for the New Orleans Saints is the positive definitely outweighs the negative.

With that in mind, let’s take a look at the Saints’ good and bad, 13 days before the titanic regular-season opener against Minnesota:

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Nakia Hogan

New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees is more than just a little amped about playing tonight’s preseason game at the Superdome.

The opponent is the San Diego Chargers, the franchise that five years ago was less than enthused about trying to keep Brees on its roster and eventually let him walk in free agency to the Saints.

Brees has never forgotten about his departure from San Diego and his arrival in New Orleans.

But the excitement for Brees, the reigning Super Bowl MVP, has nothing to do with getting an opportunity to rub it in to the Chargers. Instead, it stems from this being the third and perhaps most important of the Saints’ four preseason games.

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Peter Finney, Times-Picayune

The story begins, “How about a two-dat?”

The New Orleans Saints Super Bowl win was almost universally liked.

It’s a preview on the 2010 New Orleans Saints that caught my eye, one in which Bruce Marshall, a Las Vegas-based NFL pundit, tells us he could not recall “a more refreshing sporting development” than the storybook journey Sean Payton’s football team traveled last season.

Marshall said it was accompanied by “a joie de vivre rarely seen in the button-down world of today’s NFL, where teams often look and play alike and title winners are frequently rewarded for ruthless and often colorless efficiency.”

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Jeff Duncan

New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton said reserve quarterback Patrick Ramsey would take over the offense after starter Drew Brees leaves the exhibition game against the San Diego Chargers on Friday night.

The Saints employed the same strategy with Chase Daniel against the Texans last week. Daniel entered the game in the second quarter and played the rest of the game.

Daniel was 15 of 21 for 182 yards and three touchdowns against the Texans. He also had a 9-yard run on third-and-3.

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Jeff Duncan
The New Orleans Saints capitalized on a dominating rushing attack and two early Houston Texans turnovers to take a relatively easy 38-20 victory Saturday night before a soldout crowd at the Superdome. The Saints ran for 198 yards, held the ball for 38 minutes, 37 seconds and ran 75 offensive plays.

MICHAEL DeMOCKER / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE Jeremy Shockey leaps over Bernard Pollard in the first quarter during the preseason game between the New Orleans Saints and Houston Texans at the Superdome on Saturday, August 21, 2010.

Running back Reggie Bush was sharp early and scored the team’s first touchdown on a 9-yard run. He finished the game with 49 yards on seven carries. Quarterback Drew Brees didn’t have a great statistical night – 5 of 10 for 36 yards and one rushing touchdown – but he provided one of the game’s signature plays when he completed a 10-yard pass to Marques Colston while falling to his right.

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Nakia Hogan

New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees and the receivers stayed after practice nearly 30 minutes on a sweltering summer day Thursday, working extra to prepare for tonight’s preseason game against the Houston Texans at the Superdome.

That extra work is to be expected from Brees, the Super Bowl MVP and team leader.

But on one of the team’s side fields, away from the adoring fans waiting for autographs, linebacker after linebacker took turns attacking a tackling sled, trying to perfect the fundamentals that were lacking in last week’s 27-24 preseason loss to the New England Patriots when the Saints missed countless tackles.

“That’s definitely something extra,” outside linebacker Jo-Lonn Dunbar said of the post-practice drills. “You’ve got to do the work. You see Drew out there working. If Drew’s out there working, you had better be working.”

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