biloxi-indian

hagan, Henderson is next to audition! Payton is hell bent on starting with a "new lease on life" with the Saints. IMHO

I know it is heresy to say this around here, but Horn's days are numbered as well. Not this year, but watch out NEXT!

Halo

It's simple. Stallworth is a gameday only player, and not a practice guy. But his history has been hit or miss and we have a Parcells type person at the helm, no nonsense, so that's it. Cry babies and loosers, big mouths and big shots will have a hard time here. Can you blame them? Only a select few hot shots actually cut checks their butts can pay for. I think he went for too little but I think we need LB help so bad they will deal anything.

LKelley67

the Joe quote-

“I felt a little bad about Donte being traded because I felt it was a little my fault I didn’t instill more professionalism in him,� Horn said. “If they thought he had more professionalism, he’d still be here now.�

http://www.shreveporttimes.com/apps/...608290314/1001

Euphoria

Ok I can get over losing Stallworth... but give me something for him. A LB who will have little to no impact and a conditional 4th rounder??? I just as soon as kept him a year. We have got to get big dominating people up on the lines and Mark isn't one of them. Its going to be a long 2-3 years.

TheDeuce

The site was down yesterday so I might be a little late in this discussion. I was very sad when I heard that we had traded Donte. I was always a big fan and thought that he solidified our receiving corps as being "legit." But then I got to thinking about how good he actually was. We all expected him to live up to his first-round status, but in reality, he never did. The guy was given pretty much every chance in the world, including the #1 spot for last season, and he still couldn't break the 1000 yard plateau. You can call it Brooks' fault or whatever you want, but I don't think Brooks ever kept Donte from being an upper echelon receiver; Donte did. He seems to have a serious lack of concentration or something. He does drop a lot of balls, plain and simple. We can sit here and let his athleticism overshadow the deficencies in his game, but that would just be silly. That's one of the good things about having a guy like Payton come in, a guy who has no emotional ties to the players yet. He can't play favorites and just keep the guy around because he drafted him, or he liked him, or whatever. And you know what, no matter how fast and how much I potential I though Donte had, he just wasn't very good. He's too inconsistent to be an upper echelon receiver. I thought maybe this year would be different, but then I saw him drop two perfectly placed balls in a row in the Colts game. Let's just admit defeat and say we made another mistake in the draft. But in reality, let's take a hard look at what we're losing here. Really, we're losing a #2 receiver. But he'll probably assume the role of #1 receiver in the Philly offense. In his only year as a #1 starter, he only 945 yards, and 7 touchdowns. For a #1 receiver that's not very good. For all of those other seasons when we had Joe Horn starting, and Stall as the #2 guy, he never had more than 60 catches, never more than 800 yards, and never double-digit touchdowns. No matter how much talent he has, his stats tell the picture: he's just not that good. His yardage numbers aren't even as good as Ashley Lelie (although Lelie never scored as many touchdowns). Anyways, I guess my point is that we're losing a guy that I'm sure a lot of people here were still hoping would "develop" into being worthy of a first-round pick, including myself, but let's face it, he's been in the league for five seasons, and he still hasn't shown that he's capable of it. I think that tells us that he's just not that good.

About the rest of the deal. Mark Simoneau? I guess we could have done worse. He had a monster season two or three seasons ago when he had like 149 tackles. Apparently not a run stuffer up the middle, but good at playing the run off the edges. I am glad that we got somebody out of this deal, and the 4th round pick makes me even happier. However, it does seem to me that we're just stockpiling mediocre LBs like we stockpiled mediocre safeties earlier in the preseason. I mean we can only put three out on the field during a game, so I don't think it helps to have like 20 on the roster. Oh well. Simoneau should be a good locker room influence and I think he can still make some plays, surely more than Colby Bockwoldt and most of our other LBs.

What about our receiving corps? WIthout Donte we now have Joe Horn and then I guess Marques and Jammal Jones or Hass. That's not as scary, but I see big things in Colston's future. Remember gentlemen, this guy is a rookie coming out of a division 1-AA school. He has shown he can play and this is very early in his process of getting acclimated to a much higher level of competition.

jdiggy

Too many players in the league only play for their contract and not for the game.

Their goals are to hit that elevator clause, or trigger that bonus, not to win a SB. I think Stall is one of those players. The logic being that since he's on a bad team, he'll play for his bank account.

But, if Payton IS pulling in high character guys, at least they won't give up at the end of the season when things get dark. Hopefully their "character" will keep them fighting to the end and these new guys will make it interesting.

BTW, Charles Grant only plays for his contract too...

LSUJeremy

On the PUP list - Looking at the Priest Holmes article on ESPN the other day they said something like you can't put a player on the PUP list unless he's missed all of the preseason, or something along those lines. I don't think Bethel Johnson can go on that list.

Bobaganoosh

You have to keep them on the PUP list for the first 6 weeks and then he has to be activated, cut, or placed on IR meaning he will be out the entire season. i dont think you will see the Saints do that with anyone...espiecally Michael Lewis.

gandhi1007

Now.....I'm not one to say I told you guys so..... well, okay.......yes I am.

I told you Colston was going to take that #2 WR spot!!! :P

saintswhodi

I hate you all.