Not again: How the Saints are preparing for hurricane aftermath
There is a 10-foot SAINTS EDGE sign unfurled on the second floor of the Conrad Indianapolis Hotel -- the Saints' headquarters for Week 1 of the NFL season after the team was forced to relocate because of Hurricane Gustav. That's coach Sean Payton's theme for the year; everything the Saints do, they're doing to get an edge on the competition this year. And in a strange, it-can-only-happen-in-sports kind of way, migrating 820 miles north to make final preparations for the season might actually give the Saints an advantage heading into Sunday's season-opener with the visiting Bucs.
The team is sequestered from the fervor that normally surrounds the opening of a season. It's football, football, football, with no demands for tickets, no family coming to town for a few days (who would come to New Orleans this week anyway?), and a training-camp-like focus on the game. The Saints are tentatively scheduled to return to New Orleans late Friday and hold a walkthrough at their practice facility Saturday before Sunday's scheduled game at home with the Bucs. All that can change, of course, depending on developments of the hurricane. Relatively speaking, the news seems better on that front than expected this morning, with the storm being downgraded to a Category 2 around 9:45 a.m. and the eye approaching landfall 82 miles west of the city.
GM Mickey Loomis told me late Sunday night he thought the team would be OK, but that's all he would say on the record because the Saints are determined not to be overwhelmed and distracted by the storm, the way they were by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The Saints have put a news blackout on themselves, not allowing media access to their players, coaches or staff Saturday, Sunday, today and Tuesday, and hunkering down in downtown Indianapolis while practicing at new Lucas Oil Stadium.
Payton told the players Sunday night to steer clear of the media until Wednesday. The Saints can't prevent their players from watching CNN on the plasma TVs in their rooms in the tony Conrad -- if you've stayed in a Conrad Hotel, you know it's as upscale as a Four Seasons -- but they'll do everything they can to make this football business as usual. There's nothing the organization can do about the hurricane, obviously, except prepare as best it can to play games whenever the storm passes. And by sequestering the players, it prevents the kind of Saints-as-sympathetic-hoboes stories that made them a national story when Katrina hit, and gave them excuses to lose in the long run that season.
But there are issues swirling around the Saints and this hurricane, and perhaps around another potentially monster hurricane, Hanna, on the heels of Gustav. Led by this: Can the Saints survive in New Orleans? And if they can't, where will the team relocate?
In the short-term, if the storm devastates the city and its environs, the Saints and Bucs would likely flip their games, with New Orleans traveling to Tampa this Sunday and hosting the Bucs on Nov. 30. (Not that the league would be swayed by this factoid, but changing sites of the games would mean the Bucs, who already had a road-heavy midsection to their schedule, would have one home game between Oct. 20 and Dec. 20, an unprecedented load of away time.)
New Orleans might have to look for a temporary practice home. It's likely not to be in the place they fled to in 2005, San Antonio, because this time the team would be looking for a place they could call home for as long as they needed to, not a place they'd be sharing space or time with. In 2005, the Saints were forced out of the Alamodome several times to practice in parking lots and high-school fields, displaced by an NCAA volleyball tournament and a huge Home Show. This time, if necessary, they'd go to a training site where they'd be the top priority.
As for where the games would be played if the city is devastated, the Saints won't have to worry about that until a scheduled three-game homestand begins in four weeks, with San Francisco, Minnesota and Oakland coming to town on Sept. 28, Oct. 6 and Oct. 12. Following that, because of their "home'' game with San Diego in London on Oct. 26 and a bye, New Orleans does not have a home game scheduled until Nov. 24. I wouldn't be surprised to hear the Los Angeles rumors starting this week. I'd imagine the Rose Bowl and Coliseum would be frothing at the mouth to get Reggie Bush to be playing at home on fall Sundays.
In the long-term, I'll give you the best example of how tough it will be for New Orleans to play on equal footing with the teams it has to beat every year. The Saints' biggest sponsor, a local bank, pays the team $1.2 million a year in exchange for advertising and being the bank of the Saints and other privileges. The Cowboys' local bank sponsor pays the team $12 million a year. After the storms, let's say the population, which was at 485,000 before Katrina and now, pre-Gustav evacuation, is at about 275,000, nosedives again. Will the league and the owner, Tom Benson, who has rededicated himself to making the Saints a cultural hub of the rebuilding city, be so willing to try to make the franchise work in New Orleans again? I doubt it, but that's only if the storm is hugely damaging to the area, on the scale of what Katrina was.
It's always dangerous to project what will happen to a place like New Orleans when something like a hurricane is involved. We're guessing the levees will hold, but do we know? No. We're guessing the city won't be flooded, but do we know? No. I don't mean to be dancing on the football grave of the Saints, by any means. I was so overwhelmed with feeling for the city three years ago that I bought four Saints season tickets. They've since been taken over by my friend, Jack Bowers, who works for Habitat for Humanity in New Orleans, which is trying to rebuild the Upper Ninth Ward one home at a time. Heaven help the Lower Ninth Ward today.
At some point, business will be business. Right now, Sean Payton and Mickey Loomis are determined if they if they lose Sunday, it won't be Gustav that beats them.Quote of the Week I
"He will very quickly find out he's not the player he should be. I hope he figures it out before there is irreversible damage."
--Dr. Neal ElAttrache, director of sports medicine and orthopedic surgeon at the Kerlan-Jobe Orthopaedic Clinic in Los Angeles, in the San Diego Union-Tribune, discussing how Chargers linebacker Shawne Merriman will feel this season while playing with two partially torn knee ligaments. He also said Merriman will feel instability during games.
Quote of the Week II
"Our governor is going to be vice president, and we still don't have an Olive Garden.''
--Alaskan Kerry Baranou, bemoaning the local dining choices while celebrating the prospect of Sarah Palin going to the White House, in Sunday's New York Times.
Quote of the Week III
"I pay a lot of attention to it. I never thought I'd see it in my lifetime and until [the] Iowa [primary], I still had my doubts whether it would happen. It's thrilling. It's important. When we won the Super Bowl, people said to me they never thought they'd see an African-American coach in that position. But this is so much more significant, obviously. It's great for our country.''
--Indianapolis coach Tony Dungy, on Barack Obama winning the Democratic presidential nomination.
I asked Dungy if he'd be interested in making an appearance with Obama, if the senator asked.
"I would do it,'' he said, smiling broadly.
Quote of the Week IV
"I would hope to God that it would be [better] because [the show] on HBO it just got bland. It got bland, it got boring, and it just sat there that it was a foregone conclusion that somebody was supposed to tune in because it was what it was. You have to entertain the people.''
--New Inside the NFL panelist Warren Sapp, in the Boston Globe, opining that the Showtime version of the long-running pro football show will be better than the HBO version.
Fairness in Journalism Department: I worked on HBO's Inside the NFL for the past six years. Not that I'm sensitive about the quality of the show or anything like that, but this boring, bland show must have really put a lot of people to sleep. Three times in the past six years, this show that just sat there won the Emmy for Best Sports Studio Show. Not best football show. But best studio show in all of sports television. Three times, more than any other sports show in the past six years. Better than all the ESPN shows, better than the FOX shows, better than the shows on Showtime parent CBS.
Emmys are often awarded to shows that put voters to sleep, particularly shows the voters are comparing to the two-hour ESPN pregame spectacular and the bells-and-whistles, grab-the-headlines Fox show ... and, well, to all the other shows on the burgeoning sports TV landscape that outspent the HBO show and used more people in front of and behind the camera.
It'll be interesting to see the first production meeting at Showtime, when someone reads that quote to that boring co-host of the HBO show, Cris Collinsworth, who is only the best studio analyst in recent sports TV history. He never "entertained the people.'' No, not Cris. Remember last year, Warren, when every other sports TV analyst was covering his rear end on Bill Belichick and Spygate -- and I mean every one -- and Collinsworth ripped him a new one for dishonoring the game? There's a case of the totally bland Collinsworth just showing up for the paycheck every week. I can hear Sapp in that production meeting next week: "Cris, I didn't mean you. You're the greatest! It was all those other guys who put me to sleep!''
MMQB (cont.)
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The Browns expect defensive tackle Shaun Rogers to have a big impact on their line.
The Browns expect defensive tackle Shaun Rogers to have a big impact on their line.
Joe Robbins/Getty Images
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And Dan Marino, excoriating Andy Reid for not putting Donovan McNabb in the shotgun more, and Cris Carter, laying the wood to more than a few NFL types. And that Bob Costas. There's a bland guy, Warren, a guy viewers tune into for no good reason. Ask your good friend Barry Bonds and Belichick how bland Costas is.
Final note, Warren: The man who produced the HBO show, the proactive and imaginative (and not bland, I can tell you that) Brian Hyland, has moved to the NFL Network for the season, to run the pre-game show, the Sunday morning show you'll be working on. I look forward to you two meeting -- if you haven't already. I especially look forward to the disgusted look Hyland will have on his face when he shakes your hand.
Big talk, big fella. Good luck backing it up.
Hey, I like Sapp. He's always been a good quote, and good to me. But saying what he said would be like Mike Brown hiring me to be his GM, and on the first day on the job, someone asks me about the nearby Indianapolis Colts and I say, "That Bill Polian's a know-nothing. We'll out-scout him and out-draft him.''
Quote of the Week V
"Mark my words: If Shaun Rogers is healthy, he'll be the NFL defensive player of the year.''
--Detroit president Matt Millen, who dealt Rogers to the Browns on Feb. 29 for cornerback Leigh Bodden and the 87th pick in the draft, a third-round pick that the Lions turned into Florida State defensive tackle Andre Fluellen.
Millen and I discussed Rogers and the trade the other day. I drew a parallel between Rogers and Manny Ramirez and told Millen that if he's right, and Rogers plays great for the Browns, the Lions should not be ripped for this trade. That's because a player can grow stale in a place and not play well there any more, even if he's a talented player with great upside. Manny Ramirez, who'd soured on everything Sox, would not be playing as well in Boston as he's played in Los Angeles over the past month. Guaranteed.
Here's how you know: Manny hasn't taken a day off in L.A. and he's stolen two bases in a month. In his final two months in Boston, he was playing in quicksand; he had one steal in his last three years with Boston. Same sort of I'll-show-you thing when Roger Clemens left Boston. Had Clemens stayed, he'd have been just a guy the rest of his career. Doubt me? Look at Clemens' last four years in Boston ... the definition of mediocrity.
That brings me to a stat you might appreciate, especially if you live in New England.
Vindictive Manny Stat of the Week
The first month on new jobs for Manny Ramirez and the man who replaced him in Boston, Jason Bay:
Player AB R H 2b 3b HR RBI BA OBP Team W-L
Ramirez 106 21 44 7 0 9 25 .415 .508 13-16
Bay 111 22 35 6 2 4 29 .315 .358 18-9
Ramirez is unconscious, as we figured he might be, trying to show the Red Sox didn't appreciate him. But Bay's been superb with runners in scoring position, and 29 RBIs in August -- in any month, for that matter -- is big-time production.
Stat of the Week
The seven highest-paid Indianapolis Colts in 2009 will have a combined $81.3-million cap cost, which leaves the bottom 46 players on the active roster, eight practice-squad players and, say, estimated injured-reserve players to split the remaining estimated $40.7 million of the cap.
Salary-cap average of the relative Colt haves: $11,614,286.
Salary-cap average of the relative Colt have-nots: $678,333.
Factoid of the Week That May Interest Only Me I
"Who is making up this schedule, anyway?'' Mike Holmgren asked me last week. He slid the Seahawks' slate of 2008 games across his desk to me and asked me to look at Seattle's last home game.
Dec. 21, New York Jets, 1:05 p.m.
Seattle traveled to Green Bay for the last game of the 2005 season. After the game, Brett Favre boarded the Seattle plane and told Holmgren he was going to retire.
Seattle traveled to Green Bay for the wild-card playoff game after last season. Before the game, Favre sought out Holmgren before the game and hinted strongly that this was going to be his last month playing football.
Now the Jets will travel to Seattle at the end of the 2008 regular season, and if you're Holmgren, you just might take whatever Mr. Brett Favre tells you with a salt shaker.
Factoid of the Week That May Interest Only Me II
The New York Giants have named Snausages (I just love that brand name ... Snausages) the official dog snack of the team. For every third down the Giants convert this year, Snausages will donate $100 to New York Pet Rescue in Larchmont, N.Y.
Think of that promotion: Someone actually had to think of that, present it at a Snausages board meeting, sell it to the Giants, and do it with a straight face.
Roster-Cut Weekend Quiz of the Week
I am going to name three of the five players of one NFL team's position group now that the rosters have been cut to 53. You name the team and the position group.
Kregg Lumpkin, Korey Hall, John Kuhn.
I would bet $100 that there are some NFL personnel people who don't know the team and the position group.
Answer at the bottom of Ten Things I Think I Think.
Aggravating/Enjoyable Travel Note of the Week
I assumed Alaska Airlines was just like all the rest of carriers last week when I boarded an Alaska flight from Seattle to Newark last Monday. You know, cut-rate service, pricey water, no leg room. Then the beverage cart went up the aisle early in the flight. Alcohol was $5 a pop, but the rest of the drinks, gratis.
I got water, no ice, with two small bags of spicy pretzels. The flight attendant noticed I finished the water quickly. She said, "Would you like more?'' I said how about a cup of coffee. "Cream and sugar?'' Just cream, I said. Here came a cup of Seattle's Best coffee, with two half-and-half creamers.
Who gives half-and-half to coach passengers? Alaska Airlines, that's who.
Later in the flight, the beverage cart came around again. The coffee was so good I got another cup.
Very, very pleasant flight attendants. Legitimately cheerful.
The food was for sale, and I didn't do that. But three beverages, with the offer of more, is far more than we've come to expect from airlines that more and more pack us into planes and tell us to like it -- or else.
C Ten Things I Think I Think
1. I think these are my quick-hit thoughts of preseason Week 4:
a. I wish there hadn't been a preseason Week 4.
b. I like the reinstatement of Pacman Jones, or Adam Jones, or whatever his name is this week.
c. Adam Pacman to me: "I want to play in Dallas the rest of my career. I never want to leave.''
d. Rod Marinelli on Jon Kitna: "To me, there's not a better quarterback in the NFC.'' Nice to have a loving coach with Honolulu-blue-colored glasses.
e. Did you notice Chris Henry was one of Cincinnati's weekly captains for its final exhibition game? I think Sirhan Sirhan got his Eagle Scout badge in the big house years ago too.
f. I am amazed, just amazed, that Andre Woodson, in the span of 10 months, has gone from likely first-round pick, to the sixth round, to the waiver wire after being cut Saturday by the New York Giants. That is a team that loves prospects, and for it to toss away Woodson is an indictment on the kid's grasp of the pro game and his confidence, which flagged from the first day of training camp.
g. Matt Bryant missed field goals of 36, 36 and 23 yards in August. The Bucs aren't good enough to carry a kicker in a slump, so look for Jon Gruden to have little patience for Bryant if the slump continues into Week 1 or 2.
h. It seems bizarre, but Jim Zorn is really thinking of playing Stephon Heyer, a second-year tackle, ahead of 10-year vet and longtime starter Jon Jansen, who's had trouble in the preseason with speed rushers, at right tackle. Why wouldn't Zorn do this, with Justin Tuck set to line up across from the Washington right tackle Thursday night?
i. I love the fact that Buffalo kept on its 53-man roster rookie Reggie Corner, a corner.
j. Could the news media covering the Democratic National Convention have butchered the name of the Broncos' home field any more thoroughly for a week? Never, ever, ever, did I hear the full proper name of the place -- Invesco Field at Mile High. I heard "Invesco Field'' on CNN quite often, which is fine. But I bet 19 times on CNN, NPR, MSNBC and Fox News I heard "Mile High Stadium,'' even Friday morning, in all the post-mortems. How hard is it to get the name of the stadium right?
k. The Dayton Daily News, one of the papers covering the Bengals daily, has begun referring to Chad Johnson as Chad Ocho Cinco, from the looks of Saturday's paper. "The week leading up to the Baltimore game represents the first full week of practice time Ocho Cinco, T.J. Houshmandzadeh and Carson Palmer will have together since the 2007 season finale at Miami,'' beat man Chick Ludwig wrote Saturday, apparently with a straight face.
l. Cornerback John Bowie got IR'd by the Raiders. He's the defensive back drafted by Oakland with the choice acquired in the Randy Moss trade. That means the Raiders have officially gotten nothing out of the trade for one of the best players in football.
m. Adios, John Lynch. I hope this isn't the end.
2. I think this will give you a good idea of the robbery that is the NFL preseason. Here is a partial list of the players who did not take the field for the final exhibition game of the summer, though they were healthy enough to play (and I am not including Peyton Manning or Tom Brady). Keep in mind that the teams didn't give a single rebate for these games, charging the same prices they'll charge for the real games:
Carson Palmer, LaDainian Tomlinson, Philip Rivers, Antonio Gates, Matt Hasselbeck, Patrick Kerney, Julian Peterson, Al Harris, Charles Woodson, Donovan McNabb, Brian Westbrook, Drew Brees, Marques Colston, Jeremy Shockey, Reggie Bush, Charles Grant, Will Smith, Jonathan Vilma, Steve Smith, Julius Peppers, Eli Manning, Plaxico Burress, Justin Tuck, Brett Favre, J.T. O'Sullivan, Frank Gore, Isaac Bruce, Nate Clements, Patrick Willis, Marc Bulger, Torry Holt, Steven Jackson, Clinton Portis, Antwaan Randle El, Marvin Harrison, Joseph Addai, Brandon Marshall, Jay Cutler ... well, you get it. In the Buffalo-Detroit game, 37 of the 44 projected starters did not play. It continues to be a disgrace that NFL owners steal money from their most loyal fans -- the ones who buy tickets -- by charging regular-season prices for preseason games.
3. I think you might be surprised at the NFL player who will be under the most pressure in September. Not Derek Anderson, the quarterback of the Browns, coming off such a lousy end to 2007. Not Steve Justice, the sixth-round rookie from Wake Forest, called on to open the season at center for Indianapolis. (Remember A Beautiful Mind, with Russell Crowe playing the genius who could crack every top-secret code? The Colts have two Crowes -- Manning and his alter-ego at center, Jeff Saturday, out for six weeks with a knee injury.) Not Matt Ryan or Brodie Croyle, handed the reins of bad teams with almost no chance of early success.
Here's my candidate: Artis Hicks. With the four-game suspension handed to left tackle Bryant McKinnie by the league last week, the Vikings turn to Hicks, and all he'll have to do in the next four weeks is protect the blind side of an inexperienced quarterback (Tarvaris Jackson) gimpy with a recovering knee. His blocking assignments: Kabeer Gbaja-Biamila, Dwight Freeney, Julius Peppers and Kyle Vanden Bosch. Yikes.
4. I think you might be surprised at the player who suffered the biggest injury in wasteful Week 4: Seattle wideout Ben Obamanu. He suffered a broken clavicle against Oakland and now, instead of starting next week at Buffalo -- with injuries likely keeping Deion Branch and Bobby Engram out of the lineup -- Obamanu is on IR for the year, and Holmgren is going to have to scotch-tape a passing game together for Hasselbeck. I do not like the Seattle offense Sunday in Orchard Park. That would be a huge win if the Seahawks, with those injuries, could pull it out.
5. I think if you're a fan of the Browns, or if you're interested in the mechanics of how a trade in the NFL gets done, you might want to read my diary of Cleveland's offseason in Sports Illustrated later this week. My favorite part is the contentious trade between Cleveland and Detroit for Rogers, and how Rogers went from Detroit to Cleveland to Cincinnati to Buffalo to Cleveland in about 18 hours. The emotion and anger in the discussions between Millen and Phil Savage will be fun to read. They were fun to report.
6. I think if you like gold-medal hero Michael Phelps, there's going to be something about Phelps in that story that will surprise you quite a lot.
7. I think there's been far, far, far too much debate on whether teams winning the pre-game coin flip will defer their decision to the start of the second half. Can we give it a rest please? Someone asks Belichick about it twice a week. I'll be shocked if a team's choice to receive the kickoff to start the first half or second half determines the outcome of a single game all season. Think about it. A team that wins the flip and decides to take the ball at the start of the third quarter will get the same number of possessions as one that wins the flip and decides to take the ball at the start of the first quarter.
8. I think one of the most intriguing battles in any camp -- second-round rookie Brian Brohm versus sixth-round rookie Matt Flynn to back up Aaron Rodgers -- was clearly won by Flynn. But now the Packers have to decide if they're comfortable with Flynn being a heartbeat away from quarterbacking a playoff team.
9. I think the nomination of Bob Hayes by the Seniors Committee of the Pro Football Hall of Fame selection committee is a bit odd. Fairness in journalism here: I am one of the 44 selectors, but not one of the rotating members of the senior group that picks two old-timers for the entire body to vote on at the Hall's selection meeting on the Saturday before the Super Bowl.
I have tremendous respect for these voters, and I'm not just saying that. I do. But every year we hear about the tremendous backlog of great Seniors candidates, passed over for one reason or another during their time as regular candidates. And Hayes was voted down just five years ago by the body after being nominated by the Seniors Committee. You're telling me there aren't deserving candidates whose names have not come up in the past decade by the Seniors Committee, players like Mick Tingelhoff and Jim Marshall? I understand the tremendous interest in Hayes -- both publicly and by the committee -- but should he be coming up to a vote again after being spurned just five years ago?
10. I think these are my non-football thoughts of the week:
a. Best speech of the Democratic Convention: Obama, easy. Second-best: Beau Biden. That kid's got it together.
b. I regret to inform you that there's been another fatality in Army Sgt. Mike McGuire's platoon, along with some injuries. I've been asked to not be specific about the injuries, or about the accident, except to say that there is a new explosive device that the insurgents are using, and instead of simply exploding, the device shoots off projectile explosives that can kill and maim in all directions.
I feel for Mike so much. He has had enough of the war, yet wants to support his men in any way he can. When he has leave next month, rather than spend all of it with his family, he is going to a memorial service for the late Sgt. Allen Bevington in western Pennsylvania, and then to Walter Reed Army Hospital in Washington to visit Nick Koulchar, one of his men who was wounded in this most recent attack. If you are so inclined, pray for McGuire's platoon and all of the other troops abroad.
c. While you're at it, pray for the Gulf Coast of this country.
d. The Mets must have the worst bullpen of any contender in history.
e. Is Dustin Pedroia a real person? He just had a 43-hit month, with six home runs. He is 5-foot-8, maybe. He just went 4-for-4 on back-to-back nights, reaching base 10 times in 10 appearances in the two games. Terry Francona batted him cleanup twice. Ozzie Guillen pitched to David Ortiz and intentionally walked Pedroia. Ozzie Guillen said, "I just [intentionally] walked a jockey.'' This is an amazing story we're watching.
f. How on God's green earth did that official scorer rule the one hit in CC Sabathia's one-hitter a hit? It was as clear an error as there could be. If Sabathia doesn't drop the ball, he throws the runner out at first easily.
g. How on God's green earth does Anderson Cooper's hair stay so nice in a hurricane? Does he go to Jimmy Johnson's stylist?
h. Coffeenerdness: It's a controversial addition, this new Vivanno smoothie at Starbucks. But the banana-chocolate one is a well-worth-it 270 calories, if you ask me, with a real banana in it, plus some protein. Tasty.
i. Answer to NFL quiz: Lumpkin, Hall and Kuhn are three of the five backs kept by Green Bay, with Hall and Kuhn playing predominantly fullback. The team's other two backs are Ryan Grant and Brandon Jackson.
How do your Week 1 picks stack up against Peter King's? Click here.
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