Saints are looking for Des in free agent market

Finishing the past season with the Super Bowl title, the New Orleans Saints found it still necessary to improve their team for a new season. They are as active on the free agent market as any other team and their focus is on defensive ends.

According to Saints general manager Mickey Loomis, the St. Louis Rams defensive ends James Hall and Leonard Little both are of interest to the Saints. Hall just finished a visit on Friday and Little was expected to have visit next week.

The Saints released veteran Charles Grant last week and allowed linebacker Scott Fujita to sign a three-year, $14 million deal with the Cleveland Browns. They could start looking at players with expired contracts on other teams, but their main target would still be the defensive ends, as they still have quite few choices on linebackers.

According to Loomis, the Saints could choose a linebacker from those still wearing Saints jerseys like 2009 draft pick Stanley Arnoux, 2009 undrafted free agent Jonathan Casillas, two-year pro Jo-Lonn Dunbar, 2007 draft pick Marvin Mitchell, three Year Pro Anthony Waters and veteran Troy Evans, to group with middle linebacker Jonathan Vilma and weakside linebacker Scott Shanle as starting linebackers.

Saints are ready to retain 13 free agents with new contracts

As many as eighteen players now wearing the New Orleans Saints jerseys will become restricted free agents after the March 5 deadline for free agency, and the Saints have plan to retain thirteen of them and have tendered qualifying offers them.

The thirteen will-be free agents are offensive tackles Jammal Brown, Jermon Bushrod and Zach Strief, safeties Roman Harper, Chris Reis and Usama Young, defensive linemen Remi Ayodele and Anthony Hargrove, wide receivers Lance Moore and Courtney Roby, linebacker Marvin Mitchell, tight end David Thomas and running back Pierre Thomas. The detailed terms of the offers have not been available.

Before agreeing to any contract with the current team, the thirteen players all may just wait to see if they can receiver better offers from other teams who are hunting in free agent market. But as restricted agents, they should allow the Saints to match any offer.

Saints CB Porter and Colts DE could be X-factors in Super Bowl

This Sunday’s Super Bowl game between the New Orleans Saints and the Indianapolis Colts is more than a showdown between star players from both teams. We are also expecting some unknown players to provide their teams with big plays at critical moments. Such X-factors have emerged from their obscure roles.

On the Saints side, cornerback Tracy Porter is believed to be the essential defensive player to blanket wide receivers Reggie Wayne and Pierre Garcon on the outside. Putting on his Saints jersey again after taking off some time to take care of his injured knee, the second-year cornerback witnessed Saints’ defense regaining its opportunistic prowess. With the existence of Porter, coordinator Gregg Williams is able to use some of the exotic pressure packages that have been a hallmark of his defenses for years. And Porter’s performance will determine how often Williams could use the scheme that has always caused problems to opponents during the postseason games.

On the Colts side, defensive end Raheem Brock will be a valuable contributor of scores. He may also be added to the starting lineup if Dwight Freeney turns out unable to play the playoff because of his ankle injury. Having 3.5 sacks in the regular season, Brock has shown a knack for getting to the quarterback in the past, and came up with a critical forced fumble in the divisional-round win over the Baltimore Ravens. Brock will surely be used as an edge rusher to put pressure on Drew Brees and disrupt his rhythm in the pocket, in case Freeney won’t play.

Saints made move Tuesday to improve team

After this season’s first loss, the New Orleans Saints may think that it is time to bring some changes to the team to obtain improvement. Put the injured on IR, cut the old and inactive players and bring in some fresh blood, and that is how can you describe the moves they made on Tuesday.

The most significant move was to cut kicker John Carney, who was in his 21st year of wearing NFL jersey and just signed with the Saints in August for his second stint with the team. Playing totally 11 games in Saints jersey this season, Carney had been inactive for the last two week with Garrett Hartley playing as placekicker.

The first move was to sign tight end Tory Humphrey and place fullback Marcus Mailei on injured reserve. Afterwards, the Saints signed back Kyle Eckel to replace Mailei and added safety Herana-Daze Jones to the roster with releasing cornerback Marcus McCauley, who had not played a game since joining the team on Dec. 8.

Cowboys LB Ware returned to practice

The Dallas Cowboys linebacker DeMarcus Ware wore back his Cowboys jersey and returned practice Thursday, although the team was still unsure whether he could play this Saturday night’s game at New Orleans just less than a week after the linebacker strained his neck in a scary headfirst collision.

On the practice report issued by the Cowboys, Ware was still listed as not participating, but he indeed was involved in some parts of the 90-minute session without pads that resembled a walkthrough. According to NFL rules, the team does not need to indicate Ware’s playing status for Saturday game until Friday.

The three-time Pro Bowl linebacker himself said earlier this week that he wanted to play against the undefeated Saints, the NFL’s most productive offense, and he might be able to keep his promise. Having never missed a game, Ware has started all 77 regular-season games since he was the 11th overall pick in 2005 and is likely to continue with the clean streak.

Those Impressed us most in Week 13

The number 13 should be a unlucky number for the Minnesota Vikings, Brett Favre did managed to help the team to keep their second winning streak of the season. And the team who beat them did not beyong many people's expectation. The Arizona Cardinals rank ninth now and I guess they themselve did not expect to win over the Rank-3 Vikings.

The Pittsburgh Steelers gave their fans a really happy surprise when they was the first team to beat the Vikings. But from then on the team was again in slide. On Sunday night, the Super Bowl Champion was beaten by one of the league's worst team: the Oakland Raiders.

And unbeaten teams keep setting records. The Colts and the Saints seem determined to meet each other in the last game and they set a record together by making this season the first to have two teams remain unbeaten this late in a season.

It has been long we have not heard much of a player in Chargers jersey and running back LaDainian Tomlinson broke the silence about the Chargers by moving to eighth on career rushing list only one week after he moved to the 10th, and becoming the fastest player to achieve 150 career touchdowns.

Saints FB Evans will miss the rest of season after surgery

After having surgery on Thursday, the New Orleans Saints fullback Heath Evans was placed on injured reserve. And the team soon found a replacement- they signed fullback Kyle Eckel to add versatility on the field.

Evans suffered the season-ending anterior cruciate ligament tear in last Sunday’s comeback victory over the Miami Dolphins after nearly scoring on 9-yard reception out of the backfield in the fourth quarter. He was forced out of bounds by Akin Ayodele, a linebacker wearing Dolphins jersey, at the 2, setting up quarterback Drew Brees’ sneak for the go-ahead score.

Eckel arrived in New Orleans Thursday and took part in the team’s practice in time. But if he is comparable to Evans to be a key blocker in the Saints’ running game, it remains unsure until Monday night when the Saints play against the Atlanta Falcons.