I want to see how he handles himself running the offense in the preseason. Preferably against a #1 defense at some point.

Thats not how I remembered it at all.

We could have franchised Nicks and kept him here, but since a deal wasn't done with Brees we had to franchise Brees and were then unable to keep Nicks.

We also offered "nearly" the same money as Tampa did, but he left for a few dollars more.

I love me some Drew Brees, but his (Condon's) prolonged negotiations cost us Carl Nicks.

When he was drafted everyone, and I mean everyone, knew he was a 2 or 3 year NFL project.

I'm surprised that so many gave up on him after 1 season.

Once again, it was not the negotiations that took so long. It was the final determination of the franchise tag ruling which strung it all out. That is what had everything stalled. The Saints could have paid Nicks whatever he wanted but clearly felt his demands were too high. I love how people blame Brees for being greedy while he was simply taking one for his union and nobody blames Nicks for truly being greedy by insisting on being the highest paid guard in the league.

Brees is my all time favourite Saint and I love the guy for what he's done for our team.

However, nobody and I mean nobody is bigger than the team, Brees is the best shot we have at winning, but he can't hold the team to ransom every time a contract comes up, our failures in other areas become more apparent and they need to be addressed.

The way the last contract dispute went on was ludicrous, especially considering Brees knew we were without Payton for the whole year and still chose to be play hard ball.

Two year extension somewhere around 20 mil a year would be about right for me, he has to accept that the defense needs upgrading because we don't have a guy coaching the defense with the plug and play capacity as Sean Payton does for the offense.

I don't think so, because all that happened after we franchised Brees, who refused to negotiate the previous year even though the Saints wanted to.

Drew (or Condon) decided to play out his contract instead of negotiating a new deal. It absolutely cost us Carl Nicks since we could have forced him to remain a Saint under the tag, or we could have had a more concrete figure in mind to keep him.

We decided it was more important to pay Brees whatever it was going to take than to over-pay for Nicks and risk losing Brees.

So we franchised Brees, lost Nicks and then went to war over the tag issue.

No, Brees wasn't franchised because he was refusing to negotiate that previous season, he was franchised because the Saints were at the time unwilling to pay his what he was worth and he didn't want to have any negotiations taking place during the season. His play during that season proved his worth. Once the season was over was when the NFLPA came into play and asked Brees to hold out for the tag to be applied so they could challenge the league.

But regardless, losing Carl Nicks was not the reason the Saints have not been back. The problem has been and remains to be the defense. Having or not having Nicks is way overplayed.

I'm in total agreement with you sir. I believe Guido has an accounting background and looks at things from a different perspective. While we see a team ham strung by a QB who is a future HOF'er Guido sees a man leading a franchise at a fair rate. If the FO were perfect and every draft pick and free agency move paid off we could afford to pay Drew what he deserves. But we are restricted by the cap even though it is ever expanding.

Drew played his first contract on a prove it deal and he proved he was worth every penny on his second contract. I'm still bothered that he would hold out during the whole bounty gate thing when the team was in disarray and needed a leader. I guess Drew needed money more. Remember Drew chose Tom Condon, who plays high priced hard ball, to represent him so he could sit back and say let's get a deal done.

On the flip side Drew didn't write the contracts that are heavily loaded at the end of the contract. That is Mickey Loomis' doing.

I love Drew and I always will hold him above mere mortals. He took us from obscurity to a Lombardi. He is the face of the franchise and is well recognized nationally as the Saints beloved leader. He represents and epitomizes clean living and success. I love him. But, I am disappointed that he is not a team first guy until he gets paid.