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Opening Statement: “These players have been waived: QB Logan Kilgore, CB Rod Sweeting, ILB Kevin Reddick, OLB Rufus Johnson, T Manase Foketi, (and) DE George Uko. And then these contracts have been terminated: TE Travis Beckum and OLB Victor Butler. That puts us at 75. Today was more some of the points of emphasis, Saints-on-Saints. Tomorrow we will shift gears a little bit towards Baltimore.”

Can you talk about the decision making with Victor Butler?

“The challenge was just the reps and not having the reps needed to evaluate. We had a long talk yesterday and look, he is frustrated I’m sure, just because (of) the early injury and then the setback this year in training camp after the rehab. It is always difficult especially when a player doesn’t really have a chance to put his best foot forward.”

Can you talk about how you thought he was coming in as a starter last year and how it’s been a rough year for him?

“Absolutely, you go out and you sign a player like him, you have a role you envision and it didn’t work out.”

With the kicking competition is it almost a gut feeling?

“Ultimately, we will spend, we’ve already spent time on it and both of those guys, to their credit, and I say this, both of them are going to be kicking this season. I think other teams see us as a place that has a kicker possibly that is good enough to play for them. We don’t have a time frame on it so we will see and go through this game Thursday and then make a decision.”

Bringing back Victor Butler to practice yesterday, was the thought process let’s just see one last look?

“Yes, number one, we would never, typically we wouldn’t release the 11 on a Sunday. Our plan all along was on Monday afternoon, but you are trying to get as much information as possible with regards to these decisions. He is not the only one. There are a handful of players that were on last year’s roster, both with Rod (Sweeting) and Kevin (Reddick) that have been in battles. None of them are easy decisions and it is one of the challenges always this time of the year.”

Kevin Reddick was a surprise to me.

“We don’t get to a point in the preseason, especially week three where we are trying to play them all and really get as much confirmation as to where we might be headed to a decision. The game we just played is one of the three preseason games. It would be very normal for us to look at every snap individually on close decisions just strictly look up on the computer, which we can do know, every snap played offensively kicking game, defensively kicking game, and then just watch one player and watch his activity. That’s helpful to do that and so all of those games represent, well to this point, a third of the games themselves and then also, you are really looking closely at how practice has gone.”


Read more: Sean Payton discusses Tuesday's roster moves

hagan714

CB Rod Sweeting, ILB Kevin Reddick

ok these two surprise me.

Rod Sweeting aint the most athletic guy in the world but i thought he had the smarts to stick and IMO opinion did a good job against gunners.

Kevin Reddick led special teams with 13 tackles and added one forced fumble.

i am starting to wonder about these moves more and more. I have not seen a replacement yet step up especially on special teams.

I hope athletic ability is not winning out over blue collar production.

Boutte

Riddick and Rufus Johnson seemed like good young prospects. I'm especially surprised to see Riddick get released.

papz

We're going to keep extra safeties imo. It's going to be fun to see how they're going to be used. I see a really fast, fun, flying to the ball type defense this season.

4-2-5, 3-2-6, 3-3-5, 4-6

The possibilities will be endless. They're going to be coming from everywhere!

jjasso007

"Khairi Fortt is nicked up and so, (we are) trying to get him healthy. And that may not be possible with the way it looks now."

I take that to mean he'll be on the IR or PUP this season

Crusader

I have always wanted a 6-4-5 defence.....

Danno

And safeties typically make excellent special teamers
Sincerely,
Steve Gleason

homerj07

I think they have some ideas on players they may be able to pickup from other teams.

hagan714

saints have a bad track history of picking up other players at the start of a season.

6 great safeties can cover up all the weak spots on a defense. we are an injury or two from biting our finger nails off all season long.