Knight
 

Um, I remember the Saints saying that they had changed their defense this past season to feature Sammy Knight. The result was a bad defense... they said Knight did not play up to expectations. Here's a quote from the TP:

"Knight is the only Saint to start every game the past four seasons. He led the team with a career-high 127 tackles and five interceptions last season. He earned his first Pro Bowl berth in 2001 after making 120 tackles and leading the team with six interceptions and five fumble recoveries. "

Now, I know it was Knight who voided his final year, but let's be real. The Saints pre-empted it. I'm just confused. The guy went to the Pro Bowl in 01. In 02, he had one fewer interception and 7 more tackles. How is that getting worse?


Also - FOR GATORMAN - Here are some more quotes from Sammy Knight about the Saints. I think you'll see that they are basically the same as what Turley, that crazy loon, was saying.

"My feelings are it's kind of a repetitive thing," Knight said. "They let Sam Mills go. They let Wesley Walls go. They let Willie Roaf go. They let Joe Johnson and La'Roi Glover go. And they let Sammy Knight go.

"When they traded Willie Roaf away for a fourth-round draft choice, I was sitting there scratching my head. I was just wondering, 'OK, this is a guy who played with us for 10 or 11 years and went to 10 straight Pro Bowls. And they just trade him away like that.'

"That's kind of a pattern I picked up on," Knight said. ". . . I thought we had a core (of players) about three or four years back. We kept being promised that we would keep the core together, and the core wasn't kept together."

Knight
 

i read it too wd. it took many years of head shaking before i accepted it as a business. emmitt did it as best i\'ve seen but also had the chance to......remember they did offer turley the money.......i thought sam mills was great but they all get let go or ousted sooner or later, that\'s why i applaud the ones who do get the money and deserve it. i hope they don\'t shank horn..........smitty

Knight
 

I understand that every team will have players who have spent years and made a name for themselves with one team and then get old and get released. That\'s nothing new. What\'s amazing to me though is that the Saints get rid of players before they\'re old or past their prime - In the last two years you could chalk up Glover, Johnson, Turley, Knight, Roaf...

I\'m sure some of you will rush in with that same old argument - but some of these players CHOOSE to leave, like Knight, who voided his contract, or Turley, who turned down an offer. I know that. My point is that other organizations do not lose veteran talent like we do... regardless of the reason. Something is wrong when a team can\'t keep a starter for more than three years. Consider... and correct me if I\'m mistaken, but as far as I know... Fontenot is the ONLY player on offense that was here before Haslett. He may leave this year. On defense, only Howard is left. Our kickers are different. SO is our return man. Now I know turnover in the league is high, but I\'m pretty willing to bet that you can\'t find a whole lot of other teams that are likely to have less than 2 starters in 2003 that weren\'t on the team in 1999.

I also know that the Haslett regime is trying to build from the ground up, but come on. Did letting Glover get away help us? Joe Johnson? I\'m just saying that there is something abnormal and I haven\'t heard a lot of people here actually want to recognize that fact. They usually blow it off and attribute it to the crazy ramblings of a mental case left tackle. Well here\'s another example of a solid, pro bowl caliber player saying the same things about the Saints.

Knight
 

I agree WhoDat. There have been numerous times in the past where I\'ve been left befuddled about the Saints not re-signing players. One of the biggest that always came back to haunt us was Morten Andersen. There have been many others, though. Sam Mills, LaRoi Glover, Joe Johnson, Willie Roaf, Wesley Walls. All have been to Pro Bowls with other teams. What were the Saints thinking in letting some of these guys go and signing players that never amounted to squat? Sometimes I wonder if they WERE thinking. Of all the players the Saints gave up on in the past that I\'m glad they did was Rickey Jackson. Not because I didn\'t like the guy, but if any former Saint deserved a Super Bowl ring, it was that man. Even though it was with the 49ers, I was glad to see him on a championship team. Maybe one day the Saints will see the light on this situation and change their philosophy. We can only hope.

Knight
 

out of the bunch, as i stated before walls was the last head shaker for me. i could\'nt believe it was just the extra money he wanted that sent him on his way.......roaf was getting up there although still a solid performer, the personal situation is hard to swallow. i guess if you got em all together for a question and answer some may back knight as i probably would, others may have different reasons......every time a team has a coaching change there\'s always a house cleaning and the saints probably lead the league in that. smitty

Knight
 

Sam Mills wanted more money than the Saints thought he should be paid. Hell, even I was a LITTLE suprised at how prosperous his career was with the Panthers. Who knew he was going to continue playing at that level. I for one thought he was past his prime. Would I have liked to have seen him retire as a Saint? Yes, but in the back of my head is that voice that is constantly reminding me that this is a business.
The past several years there has been problems in the locker room. Joe Johnson was a big part of that. I have no problem in letting these types go, as they do more damage to your team than good. That\'s why neither Moss nor Owens would ever play on my dream team- too much of a distraction, and I hate that. I\'ll probably never know what all happened between the Saints, Willie Roaf, and Joe Horn, and their personal lives, but Roaf was the one asking for the trade. Apparently things were a little to uncomfortable, and had it been my wife, I can\'t say as I\'d blame him. But this kind of \"As The World Turns\", micky mouse bull****, has no place in the locker room.
But this is not written to defend the Saints organization, letting Walls, Glover, and Knight go never made sense to me. I COULD speculate on how evil the organization is for letting these players go, but maybe they didn\'t fit into the defensive scheme. I firmly believe that if Zook was still here, so too would Glover and Knight. But that\'s neither here nor there, people make mistakes, it\'s part of life. The only thing that I am concerned with is someone, anyone, bringing a SB team to NO, by any means necessary.

Knight
 

You know, you can make an argument for anything. Glover couldn\'t stop the run. Roaf was old, injured, and a distraction. Knight is too slow, past his prime, wants too much money. Sam Mills was over the hill.

Bottom line - Glover went to the Pro Bowl last year. Roaf went to the Pro Bowl last year. Knight\'s year last year was as goos as his Pro Bowl year of 2001 - he just played on a terrible defense, and the Saints expected him to be Superman. Sam Mills play didn\'t drop off when he left. He may have even gone to the Pro Bowl after leaving NO, I don\'t remember.

That\'s the bottom line to me. You can say whatever you want about these players. To me, I see a team that gave away a fairly young and very talented Pro Bowler at DT and replaced him with Grady Jackson. I see a team that gave away a LT whose been in the league for 12 years and gone to 10 pro bowls for a BIGGER distraction who WASN\'T as talented on the field... who they had to get rid of the following year. I am now watching as they let Knight go. Could Mitchell end up being as good or better than Knight for a long time? Sure. But if there\'s anything we need on defense it\'s talented veterans to hel pteach and control a group of guys that look to be very young and inexperienced.

You want to talk business... well you guys tell me, who would have impacted this team\'s success rate more? Who is the better value? Glover or Jackson? Roaf or Turley? Walls or Cam Cleeland... or David Sloan?

Have they made good moves? Absolutely. Deuce for Ricky was great. That was a smart decision. But look at of the other less obvious moves. They got rid of Willie Jackson and brought in Jerome Pathon. In \'01 Willie had 81 recptions for 1046 yards and 5 TDs. Pathon had 43 receptions for 523 yards and 4 scores. Yes, I know Stallworth came in and that made a difference... but at least Jackson could go over the middle and not get killed.

Every team makes good decisions and bad ones. It seems to me like the current regime is pretty good at the draft and down right bad when it comes to free agency... especially when it involves our higher profile more talented players.

Knight
 

There\'s never an easy answer when you are stuck between a rock and a hard place, and nothing you can say would change my opinion on the Roaf incident, because what little I do know is that the general populace will most likely NEVER know the complete story. So how am I to judge when I don\'t have all the facts??? I\'m a Tech grad, and was not happy when they traded Roaf...especially for a conditional pick. You are going to sit there and tell me that when the management was looking over what they could do, they thought the best thing would be to get rid of a 10 time pro bowler??? A monkey could make that decision. And lest we all forget about that tragic year when Ricky Williams was a rookie, Roaf making it publicly known that if things did not change, he wanted out of NO. Can you blame him for not wanting to play on a losing team? No, but that street runs both ways, my friend. Players have just as much right to say they don\'t want to play for a losing team (a team that is also paying their salaries) as the teams does to make statements like, he\'s past his prime, or he can\'t stop the run. All I\'m saying is that there is alot behind the scenes that we don\'t know about. I\'m not pointing the finger at any one person, like I stated previously, I\'m still scratching my head on Glover, Walls, and Knight. But putting all the blame on the organization is...for a lack of a better word dumb. You stating that you can make an argument for anything is broad, and goes both ways. So we can sit here all day long and make an argument for anything and get nowhere. But that\'s a typical day here at B&B boards.

P.S. Bottom line- Glover went to the Pro Bowl last year.
That\'s poor, considering every team has at least one player representing them at the Pro Bowl, and he is head and shoulders better than anyone on that team, except Woodsen, who was hurt due to the suspension. Had Glover been with the Saints last year, he more than likely would be sitting at home watching the Pro Bowl on TV, with those decent stats.

Knight
 

I think you\'re taking two situations - the Roaf and Turley situations - in which the players were disgruntled BEFORE they left or were short-changed by the Saints and applying to to ALL situations.

Again - I understand why they let Roaf go. I understand why they\'re doing it with Turley. But, there are two options here.

A. Those two cases are special situations and most player that they let go are not distractions or disgruntled players wanting tons of money that they don\'t deserve. If you believe this is true, then the Saints are consistently letting good veteran players with no glaring problems leave, b/c... who knows? They just don\'t want to pay them what they deserve?

OR

B. Every Pro Bowler and other quality veteran that they\'ve let leave in the last few years IS disgruntled BEFORE he leaves. If that\'s the case then why are the veterans, who have been in the league for a while and know what\'s going on the ones who are always unhappy?

Either way it\'s not a good thing. Either this organization screws players and it takes a few years for younger players to realize what\'s going on and once they do they all leave feeling shafted, OR the Saints just give away good players b/c they\'re too cheap to keep them. That\'s lose-lose to me.

I guess you\'ll probably say that hindsight is 20-20, but c\'mon. Did you really ever think that letting Glover go was a GOOD idea? Joe Johnson? That would be like them letting Howard and Grant go this year. Those guys were the best two performers on our defense. They were the anchors. Seriously - give me the rational that says, we\'re going to let our pro bowl caliber DT and DE go in free agency this year and replace them with Willie Whitehead or a rookie and Grady Jackson.

Knight
 

I think you guys can complain all you want about who the saints management let go, but you must not forget one thing, this current saints management has made the saints a steady contender for the FIRST TIME EVER! I a huge fan and i have probally spent 18 out of the 20 years of my life watching the saints not being able to compete with the nfl, and i wasn\'t old enough to remember before my time with what i hear resembled current day Bengal status. But it is the Haslet years that has given the saints for the first time the ability to be a STEADY superbowl contender. I truley believe that they have let certain people go for reasons, maybe not all but the majority. I became a huge fan during the ditka years where we won maybe 5 games and the league was probally surprised by that. but now,with our personel, the saints play 9-7 and the critics get mad that the saints dont win the superbowl. hey you take that record and put it on an early saints record and have shocked a bunch of people. All i am saying is that the haslet years started off with a band and then meloded out with horrible finishes but before its all over the saints will play in the big game under the loomis, haslet years,

Knight
 

It wasn\'t being mad, it was frustration on the part of the critics, caused by not playing up to our potential. We beat the Super Bowl Champs of that year, not once, but twice, we beat Green Bay, San Francisco, and Pittsburg, but manage to lose to Detroit, Minnesota, and Cincinnati.
I did not shed a tear when Joe Johnson signed with Green Bay. I did when Glover signed with Dallas. Johnson and Glover were complete opposites, Glover was always the positive thinker, uplifting his teammates, and viewed as a leader on defense. Johnson was becoming a cancer in the locker room, always negative, and *****ed about everything. This may have something to do with how they got to where they are in the league today, Glover having to fight through the ranks of CFL or World League or one of those leagues, I can\'t remember off the top of my head, while Johnson was a #1 pick, and has had everything spoon fed to him ever since. Johnson even had the gall to suggest that Muller was fired because he didn\'t bring him back. No big boy, had nothing to do with you.
I know it\'s easy to point the finger at the organization and say they didn\'t do what they needed to do to keep quality veterans, makes it easier to say when they\'ve had a history of not paying their players. You have some good points in your posts, though I\'m not going to pin every big name player that leaves here being the fault of the organization.

Knight
 

OK - this argument can be spun either way. You can say it\'s all the player fault, I can say it\'s all the organization\'s fault. The truth is it\'s probably a combination. Let\'s consider this argument in another fashion.

How many players are there that you can define as a guy who was primarily a Saint during his career that are in the NFL hall of fame? Now, ask how many guys were Saints for a few years but then went somewhere else to become Hall of Famers?

I\'ll give all of the credit I can to the organization if you can convince me that the Saints have signed away more quality players from other teams then they have given away.

That has ALWAYS been a problem for this team. Look at the team right now. There are only two players that came here via free agency that are Pro Bowl caliber. Horn and Brooks. They\'ve let Knight, Roaf, Turley, Glover, Johnson, and Clemons all go through free agency. All have been or could be Pro Bowlers. I\'m not saying that some of the moves weren\'t necessary... but why is it other teams can handle having the \"brats\" and \"distractions\" while we only seem to create them, forcing us to give away Pro Bowlers?

Knight
 

Why was Marshall Faulk traded from the Colts to the Rams for a 1st round draft pick? Why did Keyshaun Johnson leave New York? Why did Brad Johnson leave Washington? Why did Jerry Rice leave San Francisco? Why did Colvin leave Chicago? Or Deion Sanders leave Atlanta, San Francisco, and Dallas? Why did Boston leave Arizona (ok, bad example). Why is Seau wanting out of San Diego? Why was Price traded to Atlanta? Why did Sharp leave Denver? Gimme enough time, and I\'m sure I could come up with several different examples for each team.

Knight
 

i believe you missed the one that could have shattered all records before and to come. walked away from the game at his prime for whatever reason and never returned. care to guess who he is? no, it\'s not redford.............smitty

Knight
 

Barry Sanders. He would be over 20,000 yards rushing now if he had stayed.

B&B - I\'m not saying that good teams don\'t lose very good players from time to time. But the Saints have let 6 Pro Bowl caliber players leave in the last two years. That\'s like the Rams saying, we don\'t need Faulk, Warner, Bruce, Holt, Pace, or Conwell. Let\'s try to build through the draft.

Or Oakland saying... hey, our guys are getting old. Let\'s get rid of Rice, Brown, Gannon, Woodson, Romanowski, and Garner. We don\'t really need them. It\'s time to rebuild.

If Oakland let Brown go through free agency b/c they thought Porter was ready to step up (which he is), and let Woodson go (that\'s Rod by the way) b/c he\'s expensive and they thought they could draft a new safety in the first round, everyone would think it is OK. But not if they let all 6 go.

Put another way, would you be unhappy if three years from now Haslett is fired and the new coach comes in and over two seasons he let\'s Deuce, Brooks, Stallworth, Grant, Howard, and Horn go? I sure would be. By I can\'t understand why people here aren\'t upset that Glover, Johnson, Knight, Roaf, Turley, and Clemons are leaving over a two year period.

Knight
 

first of all, the pro bowl game is probally a name thing, what i mean is lets say you play really awesome and make a name for yourself and get into the pro bowl. if you do that you can play average and have a 95 percent chance of getting into the probowl every year because remember fans have a little part in it too. Like two years ago Mike alstot was injured then really didn\'t play all the well, but becuase of name alone he got into the pro bowl. which is alot like roaf. what im saying is that just becuase a player goes to the probowl after leaving the saints doesn\'t mean hes probowl material. 2nd point is the saints defense did not suffer becuase of players we let go, the saints defense suffered becuase haslet invisioned a defense with the heavy lunch bunch which was a hugh failure and numerous injures/ alcohol problems in the secondary

Knight
 

This goes nack to what I have saying. Our organization does nothing to make players feel welcome. Not only welcome but that they wan t to throw together a winnner. They also see that these players reach a point financially and the Org. won\'t pay it. It makes current players not want to stay and it makes potential players want to look elsewhere.

Knight
 

ehh-hhmm.... Gator?

Fontenot recently canceled a visit to the Atlanta Falcons, who are trying to re-sign former LSU center Todd McClure. Fontenot is expected to visit Dallas and Jacksonville in the coming days.

\"It\'s my hope to get a deal done (in New Orleans) and not have to go anywhere,\" Fontenot said. \"I\'ve been holding these teams off and not pursuing anything because I\'ve wanted to show my loyalty to the Saints. But I\'m at a point now where I need to take the next step.

\"The most frustrating thing for me is I\'m not able to be in there with my teammates and fulfilling my leadership role. That starts now.\"

.... Did you ever read 1984? Oceania has always been at war with East Asia....

\"Turley, Knight, and Fontenot are all nuts.\" That\'s always been the Saints tagline, right? Hell, let\'s just come out and say it - Glover, Johnson, Roaf, Turley, Knight, Clemons, Fontenot, Sam Mills, Ricky Jackson, Morten Anderson, Archie Manning... they were all problem players from the start. Good thing we got rid of those worthless distractions. Now we can get down to some real football. HA HA HA HA! Gator, is everything Turley was saying still the ramblings of a nut ball?