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METAIRIE, La. -- You're Carl Nicks -- you want to be the best guard in the NFL, and paid accordingly.

Sure, you also want the recognition. It feels good when teammates and coaches, the public and the media acknowledge that your skills are superior to all you encounter. You can open running lanes wide as downtown alleys, protect your quarterback from the bad guys on defense. You want to be a leader.

Still, money is the biggest factor. You don't get the payday you feel you deserve in New Orleans, so you depart for Tampa Bay, whom the Saints (1-4) play Sunday at Raymond James Stadium.

"It's the world we live in. You should blame society for that," Nicks said Wednesday of his offseason decision move to Tampa Bay (2-3).

You prepare this week to face your old team for the first time. You're looking forward to it. Mainly because you get to show out against the franchise that let you go.

You don't hate the Saints. After all, they ended your longer-than-anticipated, second-day anxiety during the 2008 NFL Draft, selecting you in the fifth round. You move from tackle to guard. They teach you how to pass block, something you didn't have a lot of experience with at Nebraska. Thursday dinners with the offensive line are cool. You're intense. You tell great stories. Drew Brees calls it, "Story Time with Carl."

Read more here: You're Carl Nicks, and you want Saints to miss you | New Orleans Saints | The Sun Herald

"A Veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America" for an amount of "up to and including my life."