Crusader

Saints' Vaughn, Arnoux feel like rookies again after last season

METAIRIE -- After playing four years together in college, close friends Chip Vaughn and Stanley Arnoux had the good fortune to be drafted by New Orleans in the same year that the Saints won their first Super Bowl.


The pair of former Wake Forest defensive standouts only wished they could have been healthy enough to get on the field even once.

Vaughn has already told his mother that she'll be getting his Super Bowl ring because he doesn't believe he earned it.

"Any competitor at heart, you want to play," said Vaughn, who spent all of his rookie season on injured reserve with a torn meniscus in his left knee.

"So when you don't, there's a piece of you that feels like that championship is not really yours. ... I'm not going to wear (the ring) and that's just something that drives me to where I'm trying to go with my NFL career."

Arnoux, a linebacker, tore his left Achilles tendon on the first day of 2009 rookie camp.

He said the best he and Vaughn could do to help the club last season was to look for tendencies of upcoming opponents during film sessions.

"We were a part of it, but not how we wanted to be part of it," Arnoux said. "I definitely would rather be out there banging with those guys and putting in the blood, sweat and tears like all of them invested into the team last year."

Both players are healthy now, practicing at full speed during minicamp this past weekend. Although they've been working at Saints headquarters for a year, they say there are times when they feel like rookies all over again.

"We're just very anxious," Vaughn said. "Mentally we were there. We just have to go out there and physically just show that we can take the stuff that we learned the past year and translate that to the football field. I'm very excited just to get the pads on and get the

season started back up."

Arnoux said he believes he's ahead of the typical rookie in the meeting and film rooms, "but just actually getting out there and doing it and messing up on it, that's how you really learn in football. It's more of a hands-on sport."

Saints' Vaughn, Arnoux feel like rookies again after last season | thetowntalk.com | The Town Talk

W.T. Sherman is my favorite General. After all he did order Atlanta to be burned to the ground.