AlaskaSaints

All that matters is what Payton and Loomis think of Ivory. And history shows that Payton and Loomis like Ivory.

How many games did Ingram miss with turf toe? Everyone seems to forget that fact while remembering every game Ivory has missed.

The YPC numbers speak for themselves. Ingram's apologists can aspire for him to run like Ivory but that's not gonna make it happen.

SHOW ME

Alaska

SaintsBro

Actually, I'm not so sure of that. What makes you say that Payton likes him, just curious.

Payton has guys that he LIKES, that he relies on, he trusts them with the game on the line, he believes in them (remember his "you deserve to be here" comment to Hartley in the Vikings game?)....and then he has guys that he just throws at the wall to see who sticks. As much as I like the way Ivory runs sometimes, I've never seen anything to indicate that Payton considered Ivory to be reliable or his REAL go-to guy, or THE MAN, backbone of the team, etc. I just don't see it in what Payton says or how he uses him.

It's Pierre Thomas he goes to when the game is on the line, Sproles, or even Ingram (goal line against the Packers in 2011). Ingram came in and already has higher stock in Payton's eyes, we've already seen that in how the two get used differently.

Other than the 4th and 1 in the infamous 2010 Atlanta game that Ivory fumbled and cost the Saints points, I don't feel like Payton really calls on Ivory's number when the chips are down. I think he throws Ivory out there and uses him until he burns up and breaks, but Ivory has never penetrated into that "safe" zone like Pierre Thomas, Sproles, Graham, the guys you see Payton talking with and joking to on the sidelines, who get their numbers called on in the clutch.

As much as you and I both like Chris Ivory, to me Ivory is still in that Mike Bell/Aaron Stecker/Cadet level -- he's here, right now, "grab your helmet and get out there, son."

Remember that stretch last year where Ivory was benched and he was complaining in the press, "the coaches aren't even talking to me." Sorry, that is not someone who is the core of the team. If he was that important, they would be talking to him, working with him, fixing the problems, it would never even see the press. I just don't see it.

And the fact that we are even debating and talking about his future here in such uncertain terms, in a year when everyone else on the team including people's grandmothers have already restructured their existing contracts to stay, it doesn't sound to me like Ivory is someone that Payton and Loomis "like" a lot or see as the future of the team. And I do like Ivory, don't get me wrong.