It's Time to End the Contract Insanity

Allow me to start this column out by making a statement that would best made behind a screen of chicken wire: Drew Brees is not the greatest quarterback of all time.

Willie Roaf was a better a tackle than Brees is a quarterback.

Rickey Jackson was a better linebacker than Brees is a quarterback.

And Morten Andersen was a better kicker than Brees is a quarterback.

Roaf will be inducted in the Pro Football Hall of Fame this August. Jackson was enshrined in 2010. And Andersen, the NFL’s all-time leading scorer who went to seven Pro Bowls, will likely have a bust in Canton if the committee remember kicking is indeed an important part of FOOTball.

If Brees’s playing career ended today, the Saints quarterback would likely get voted into the hall, though he wouldn’t be the slam-dunk Peyton Manning and Tom Brady will be when they’re eligible.

Brees would need to win a second Super Bowl to guarantee his spot in the hall.

That said, no player who has ever worn a gold helmet with a black fleur-de-lis has meant more to not just the franchise but also the city of New Orleans.

Brees is to Nola what John Elway is to Denver, Dan Marino is to Miami and George Brett is to Kansas City.

Number nine owns this town. He knows it. And perhaps more importantly his agent Tom Condon knows it.

And if someone else ends up taking snaps for the Saints offense in 2013, the 70,000+ waiting list for season tickets would shrink fast.

Even if Brees’s next few seasons don’t resemble the past few in the stat department, it is important to the franchise and the fans for him to have a contract that will allow him to end his playing career as a Saint.

So who is at fault for the way Brees’s signing has been so drawn out?

This blogger doesn’t have any scoop as to negotiations between the team and Brees/Condon, but a large part of the blame needs to be left on the doorstep of the Saints’ front office.

Why did owner Tom Benson and general manager Mickey Loomis let negotiations drag out this far?

Did the Saints’ braintrust really believe Brees could be signed at a lower price while the franchise quarterback was tearing up opposing defenses and the NFL record book?

As much as I appreciate Benson’s post-Katrina commitment to building a quality team and Loomis’s moves to remake the Saints into a perennial Super Bowl contender, not coming to terms with Brees at an earlier and cheaper date boggles the mind.

That’s not to say Brees and Condon are faultless as negotiations have entered overtime.


Is Brees simply being greedy?

Are the quarterback and his agent stalling until a late June arbitration hearing is held about Brees’s’ future franchise tag status?

Or is Team Brees looking to play “negotiation chicken” up against the July 16th deadline for a multiyear deal?

Is Condon letting his drive to ink a record contract for his client and his own reputation delay an agreement that could jeopardize the chances of Brees ending his gridiron days in a Saints uniform?

Brees isn’t the only person whose tenure with the Saints is on the line.

If Brees ends up playing for another team in 2013, Loomis can start cleaning out his office on Airline Drive.

Loomis would go down in Black and Gold lore as the general manager who lost the team’s most important player and he would be lucky to land a gig as an executive in the Arena Football League.

One has to think Loomis has lost more sleep over Brees’s contract than his own suspension for his connection with the Saints bounty scandal.

Last season Brees demonstrated the kind of leadership that made Who Dats fall in love with him all over again when he organized voluntary workouts for his teammates at Tulane while the players and the league owners worked to reach a longterm deal.

This year, Saints fans are being treated to something else: a multimillionaire quarterback and his agent publicly hemming and hawing over contract details with a franchise that has a track record of letting their great players go elsewhere in the face of prolonged negotiations.

Both sides need to keep their egos in check and work out a reasonable contract that recognizes Brees’s value as an athlete and a pillar of the organization and the community without mortgaging the team’s future.

Every dollar paid to Brees is one less buck the team can use to sign an offensive lineman or defensive back.

To Brees’s credit, he has recently toned down his frustrations about the state of negotiations and has instead redirected his public grievances towards the league’s treatment of his coaches and teammates caught in the bounty scandal.

As great as Brees is, the protracted haggling isn’t not making the Saints a better team.

It’s time to get a deal done. Hopefully the upcoming arbitration ruling concerning another potential franchise tag will accelerate making a deal.

Andersen, Jackson, Roaf, Pat Swilling, Archie Manning and Sam Mills all ended their playing days wearing the uniform of another team.

For the sake of Saints fans everywhere, let’s hope Brees does not join that number.

Saints Draft 2012; Black & Gold Digs Deep for the Future

I am convinced that there are more drama queens in sports journalism than there are in the soap opera circuit.

Do these commentators feel a need to be obnoxiously hyperbolic in their evaluations?

Their Jim Rome aping reaches a climax during the NFL draft, where men who last left it all on the P.E. gym floor engage in histrionics about those drafted and the franchises that picked them.

And I’m not engaging in this seemingly oxymoronic rant just because sports writers/bloggers/talking heads all panned the New Orleans Saints’ draft.

Though this is as good of a time as any to call these clowns out for what they are: Joan Rivers jock-wannabes.

And their collective grade on the Saints’ 2012 draft ranged from a relatively charitable C- to an F. 

I would love to know what these geniuses thought of the Jonathan Sullivan pick from 2003.

It goes without saying that I don’t concur with their evaluations.

Until King Roger I sees fit to smite the remaining members of the Saints’ defense (the delay being as absurd as the NFL’s overreaction to the so-called “bountygate”), the Saints didn’t really have too many gaping holes to plug.

The biggest was the hiring of defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo to replace the tarnished Gregg Williams, whose last contribution to the team was abandoning it before he would have been exiled from the league.

I consider Spags an upgrade from the undisciplined “Double G”, whose ego has cost the team dearly in the form of bad play calls and franchise crippling scandal. 

Beyond that, Saints General Manager Mickey Loomis made selections with more an eye on the future than on the 2012 season while enduring a public relations nightmare stemming from the bounties and an alleged eavesdropping system truly worthy of the suffix “gate’ if true. 

If not true, then I hope Loomis and the organization take ESPN to the cleaners for defamation.

The team’s first selection of the draft was third round pick Akiem Hicks, a defensive tackle that was recruited by LSU but ended up at the University of Regina.  The Saints front office and scouting department must have seen something they like about the 6’5”, 318 lb defensive lineman.

And he could not possibly be a worse selection than Sullivan, whom I consider to be the biggest Black & Gold draft bust of all time.  Even if Hicks doesn’t pan out, he’ll have cost the team less in opportunity cost and cash than the aforementioned disaster.

And it’s hard to argue with an outfit that plucked Marques Colston from Hofstra, Jahri Evans from Bloomsburg and Jermon Bushrod from Towson.

Actually a pick from the University of Georgia scares me far more than someone from a small school. 

If Hicks works out, I’ll finally forgive him for trading two first rounders to snag “he who shall not be named ever again” in my column.

I also like the Nick Toon pick.

The big receiver from Wisconsin has a pro-football pedigree and will give the team its first real competition for a rare open receiver slot in some time. 

Toon will have to compete with Adrian Arrington (who has seen sparing regular season action since being drafted late in 2008) and 2011 pre-season standout Joe Morgan to fill a roster spot that was vacated when free agent Robert Meachem left for greener financial pastures in San Diego.

The wide-receiver battle will be front and center in the exhibition games.

The balance of the draft will likely need time to emerge as on-field contributors. 

Safety Corey White of Samford could be a rare franchise beneficiary of the Commish’s vengeance. 

If strong safety Roman Harper gets nailed with a lengthy suspension, White will have an opportunity to demonstrate that his 5^th round selection was a worthwhile crapshoot.

Guard Andrew Tiller of Syracuse and Tackle Marcel Jones of Nebraska could be the low rounders that challenge the thus-far disappointing Charles Brown (2010 second round selection) for a place on the team.

Then again, the Saints’ 6^th and 7^th round picks could be relegated to camp body/practice squad duty.

Rather than hyperventilate over Loomis’s picks, critics should have faith in an executive who has often found better value below the second round mark than he has above.

Besides, Loomis’s legacy will have more to do with his ability to ensure that the Saints are the final destination in Drew Brees’s playing career than what he did in the third round of the 2012 NFL draft.

That said, I thought the Saints soon-to-be suspended general manager drafted responsibly and merits no worse than a B-.

2012 New Orleans Saints Schedule

2012 New Orleans Saints Preseason Schedule

Sunday, August 5th Arizona Cardinals 7 PM NFL Network
Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio

Thursday, August 9th @ New England Patriots 6:30 PM CST/FOX 8

Friday, August 17th Jacksonville Jaguars 7 PM CST/FOX 8

Saturday, August 25th Houston Texans 7 PM CBS

Thursday, August 30th @ Tennessee Titans 6 PM CST/FOX 8


2012 New Orleans Saints Regular Season Schedule

Sunday, September 9th Washington Redskins 12 PM FOX

Sunday, September 16th @ Carolina Panthers 12 PM FOX

Sunday, September 23rd Kansas City Chiefs 12 PM CBS

Sunday, September 30th @ Green Bay Packers 3:15 PM FOX

Sunday, October 7th San Diego Chargers 7:30 PM NBC

BYE WEEK

Sunday, October 21st @ Tampa Bay Buccaneers 12:00 PM FOX

Sunday, October 28th @ Denver Broncos 7:30 PM NBC

Monday, November 5th Philadelphia Eagles 7:30 PM ESPN

Sunday, November 11th Atlanta Falcons 12:00 PM FOX

Sunday, November 18th @ Oakland Raiders 3:05 PM FOX

Sunday, November 25th San Francisco 49ers 3:15 PM FOX

Thursday, November 29th @ Atlanta Falcons 7:30 PM NFL Network

Sunday, December 9th @ New York Giants 3:15 PM FOX

Sunday, December 16th Tampa Bay Buccaneers 12:00 PM FOX

Sunday, December 23rd @ Dallas Cowboys 12:00 PM FOX

Sunday, December 30th Carolina Panthers 12:00 PM FOX

HE'S BACK: After Parcells Turns Saints Down, Mora Rejoins Team

METAIRIE- Just as talk of future Hall of Fame football coach Bill Parcells’ coming out of retirement to temporarily assume coaching duties for the heavily sanctioned NFL franchise came to a halt when world leaked out of Airline Drive that former New Orleans Saints head coach Jim Mora will once again return to the Saints’ sideline.

Though the details of Mora’s compensation package are unknown, the man who led the Black and Gold to their first winning season, playoff appearance and division title it was confirmed that contract was limited to the 2012 season.

Schuyler Colfax of Pro Football Weekly first broke the story of Mora’s surprise visit to the Saints’ front office Saturday morning.

Colfax reported that Mora was seen on a flight to Louis Armstrong International at 6:30 AM and briskly exited the terminal without comment and entered a black suburban with dark tinted windows.

Parcells, who embattled and soon to be suspended Saints head coach Sean Payton considers a mentor and had personally recruited to temporarily assume the helm, declined to end his retirement, which would have delayed his induction to the Pro Football Hall of Fame by another five years even for a one-season coaching stint.

Parcells was eligible for induction into the hall of fame earlier this year but was not voted in.

Some gridiron analysts see the Mora hire as a “win-win” for the Saints, including NFL Watch editor Thomas Hendricks. “The Saints have practically lost the 2012 season between the Drew Brees contract distraction, the departure of key free agents and the loss of crucial draft picks and their head coach. Bringing Mora back will generate some buzz and give him one last chance to win that elusive NFL playoff game,” said Hendricks.

John Breckinridge of The Pigskin Report concurred, opining on his website that “fans are going to pay attention just to watch the rants, with much inspiration from the Saints’ porous defense.”

The 77-year old Mora started his professional coaching career with the USFL’s Philadelphia/Baltimore Stars before joining the Saints in 1986. In Mora’s first season with the Black and Gold, the team finished in fourth place in the NFC West though with a 7-9 record, one of the best in franchise history. In the strike-shortened 1987 season, More led the team to its first winning season (12-3) and playoff appearance, as a wild card. Mora had four more winning seasons as head coach and three additional playoff appearances, though success in the NFL post-season proved eternally elusive.

Mora resigned as head coach in 1996 in the midst of a sputtering 2-6 season.

In 1998, Mora assumed head coaching duties with the flailing Indianapolis Colts, ending his first season there with a 3-13 record. In Mora’s next season, the Colts won the AFC East division with a 13-3 record though lost to the Tennessee Titans in the divisional playoff round. Mora guided the Colts to another winning season in 2000 and a playoff appearance (wild card) though lost what would be his sixth and final playoff game, this time to the Miami Dolphins.

Mora’s last season with the Colts was in 2001. After hanging up his headset, Mora became an analyst with Fox Sports and after being fired for making unflattering comments about then Atlanta Falcons’ quarterback Michael Vick.

Mora returned to New Orleans as a gameday analyst with local television station WDSU and his post-game tirades have been featured in Coors Light’s television commercials, including his rants about “Playoffs?!, “Diddly Poo”, “Coulda, Woulda, Shoulda,” and “April Fools’!”.

Saints Execute Encore Record Performance

It cannot be said that New Orleans Saints head coach Sean Payton played his starters out of pure vanity.

It seemed that the Saint Louis Rams were within striking range of doing the job Seattle Seahawks quarterback Tarvaris Jackson fumbled last week. But it's been standard procedure for the Rams organization to frustrate the Saints one way or the other, punt returned Az Hakim excepted.

The Saints go into the post season a bit sooner than preferred but with momentum they haven't had since the Jim Mora era.

Last year the Saints limped into Seattle, one of the toughest venues to visit in football, with a banged up secondary, tight end and decimated ground game, the very recipe the league's first ever division winner with a losing record needed to deny the Super Bowl champs a Two Dat.

During the 2009 "super season", the Saints backed into home field advantage on a three game losing streak and was reminded by the sports media ad nauseam that teams that bumble into the playoffs in a such a fashion don't win Super Bowls.

And the Saints made history proving that they do now.

Speaking of history, the Black and Gold made plenty of it against the pesky Carolina Panthers, the Bill Clinton-era expansion team that own a winning record against a New Orleans franchise that dates to 1967.

Though they're not going to the palyoffs, the Panthers had turned their team around after finishing worst in the NFL last year largely due to the prize they reaped from that dis-stink-shun.

Quarterback Cam Newton ought to be the hands down selection for rookie of the year and perhaps should have received a free trip to Hawaii in a few weeks.

The Saints were lucky to escape with a win against the Panthers in Charlotte earlier this season but in the Mercedez-Benz Superdome on Sunday, even the cats proved to be just another victim of the NFL's most prolific offense in history with a defense that's not too bad either.

Quarterback Drew Brees extended his own NFL single season passing record to 5,476 (Brees had 389 in the game) and stayed ahead of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady, who played on Sunday as well and ended the regular season with 5,235 passing yards, trailing Brees but besting Hall of Fame quarterback Dan Marino's long standing benchmark.

Almost forgotten in the mix was Saints running back/punt reurner/kick returner Darren Sproles's own NFL record day as the free agent broke Derrick Mason's single season record for all purpose yards.

Saints second year tight end and first time Pro Bowler Jimmy Graham exchanged the tight end single season receiving yards record with New England's Rob Gronkowski. It seemed that Graham would own the record but a Buffalo Bills turnover gave the Patriots a late opportunity to get the ball back in Gronkowski's hands, beating Graham out by 17 yards.

San Diego Chargers Hall of Fame tight end Kellen Winskow had set the mark during the 1980 season with 1,290.

Though the Saints set many other league and franchise season records on Sunday, there is one important state of note that should be cited Brees now has 40,742 career passing yards, moving him past Hall of Fame quarterback and eternal Saints nemesis Joe Montana for eleventh on the all-time passing yards list.

Brees can achieve first ballot induction status in Canton come February if he is able to add another piece of jewelry to his hand.

Brees Extends Legacy, Saints' Winning Streak

NOTE: The Onside Kick has been on "political reserve" most of the 2011 NFL Season due to time spent running for office and recovering from that exercise. Postings for the remainder of this season will likely be sporadic.

Brees Extends Legacy, Saints’ Winning Streak

It’s now called the Drew Brees record.

At least for this week.

There was much excitement and anxiety in the stands of the Mercedes Benz Superdome on Monday night and it had little to do with the Saints winning their division.

The Black and Gold had the game put away in the third quarter and their hold on the NFC South was secure, the question that was on everyone’s mind was whether quarterback Drew Brees would finally break the Dan Marino passing record that eluded him on the final play in the 2008 season.

Appropriately enough, it came on Brees’s final pass of the game. Even more appropriately enough, the record-breaking throw was for a touchdown to fellow San Diego Chargers castaway Darren Sproles.

And then the dome erupted with joy comparable to Garrett Hartley’s NFC Championship game winning field goal.

While it seemed after the first half the Marino passing record of 5,084 passing yards would be easily shattered in the third quarter, an interception, a big kickoff return by Darren Sproles, a clock eating Atlanta offense and a stiffening Atlanta defense that forced two punts made it appear that it would not happen until the season finale.

But with just over five minutes left on the clock, the Saints defense forced the Atlanta offense off the field at the Dirty Birds’ own 33 yard line. Brees needed just over two dozen yards at the beginning of that drive to do it.

Head coach Sean Payton helped facilitate Brees’s pursuit by calling four straight pass plays after a one yard gain by running back Pierre Thomas.

With this latest milestone, Brees further increased his already legendary status in the Crescent City while also making a greater case for league MVP and later enshrinement in Canton.

Winning a second Super Bowl would virtually guarantee him a golden jacket, though continuing his prolific passing on top of what he has already accomplished should be enough for a balloter who is not stuck in a major media market mindset.

With the history-making Brees-to-Sproles touchdown pass, the Black and Gold polished off a 45-16 drubbing of the NFC rival whom the Saints may host again in two weeks during the playoffs in the event Atlanta goes to the post-season and New Orleans is unable to secure the second seed and first-round bye.

In order for the Black and Gold to grab the second seed, the Saints would need to defeat the Carolina Panthers next Sunday and the 2-13 Saint Louis Rams would need to defeat the 13-2 San Francisco Forty-Niners on New Year’s Day.

Though the Rams are playing at home, the Niners will be a heavy favorite and highly motivated, especially with post-season positioning on the line.

Payton will have to make a decision whether to risk his playing starters next weekend as he did with terrible consequences last season when he was in a similar situation.

Also worth considering is that New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady has racked up 4,897 passing yards this season and is in striking distance of the Dan Marino Drew Brees record.

I would imagine the Saints head coach will have an eye on which quarterback takes the field for the Patriots at Gillette Stadium on Sunday before deciding how long or if he lets Brees amend his own mark in the gridiron history books.

The Most Important Game of the Year...for Me

I have had the Chicago Bears visit to the Louisiana Superdome etched in my mind since January 2007.

Due to the NFL’s brilliant (no sarcasm here…seriously) schedule rotation, the Monsters of the Midway were not due to visit the domed confines of Poydras and Loyola for four years after the Saints’ first trip to an NFC Championship game.

Everything about that Soldier Field experience was miserable.

The weather.

The Saints’ ball handling.

The final score.

And most especially the Bear fans, or as I like to call them, Chicagoons.

I wasn’t optimistic about the Saints’ chances of winning at Soldier Field, which is a surprisingly loud venue considering it’s an open air stadium. I didn’t think the Saints would adjust to the field and weather conditions without practicing in a similar environment.

But I also wasn’t going to miss what was then the biggest game in Black and Gold history.

The first omen of the misery to come was in the form of a pair of jackasses in Bears gear merrily pasting orange letters on a large blue sandwich board sign that read: Bears Finishing What Katrina Started.

I felt an impulse to capture that image, so I turned my black and gold Saints hat around, walked up to tweedle-jack and tweedle-ass and asked to photograph the fruit of their labors. They happily obliged. After taking the picture, I turned my gold fleur-de-lis cap around to the front and commented “I’m going to make you famous” and walked off.

Despite the best efforts of the Chicago Tribune to track the pair down, they remain anonymous to this day. But their “artwork” came to symbolize the abusive behavior more than a few Saints fans received at Soldier Field, including this one.

Growing tired of the threats of physical violence and Katrina taunts from screwballs whose blood alcohol levels were increasing with the Bears’ score, I did what I rarely do: I left a Saints game early. Being a longtime Who Dat, I can stand losing a game..I just wasn’t game to losing teeth.

And so I trudged out on to the frozen tundra along Lake Michigan, still happy about what the Saints had accomplished in the 2006 season though bitter about the lack of class and decency of Bears fans.

Now, I would be remiss if I did not mention that the Bears players (not the fans) made it up in 2009 by defeating the heavily favored Minnesota Vikings, which contributed to the Saints’ securing homefield advantage during the playoffs. That game marked the first time I had cheered for Chicago in anything since the 2007 NFC Championship game, however my love for the Saints trumps my dislike of any team. Even the Dirty Birds.

This week tens of thousands of Who Dats will have that Soldier Field experience on their mind as they stream into the Superdome. Doubtlessly the several thousand or so Bears fans who made the road trip to the Big Easy are also cognizant of what happened in the stands that day.

I encourage Saints fans attending the game to be passionate this Sunday about their team not hostile to the visiting Bears fans. Show them how the best fans in the NFL behave and act. That’s not to say smacktalk is off-limits.

That said I almost pity the Bear fan, who having had one too many hurricanes or handgrenades, decides to work in Katrina cracks into his rhetoric.

The Saints fan being taunted might very well have lost more than his Archie Manning jersey in the storm.

So I will close this with one request for the Saints: if you can’t bring back a second Lombardi Trophy this season at least beat the Bears.