Super Bowl Champions

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Reggie Bush Remains Key to Saints' Dreams

NEW ORLEANS -- Sometimes an NFL player gets a suffocating feeling that the games he plays on the field and in the celebrity spotlight can be exhilarating and deflating in one breath. This has been the Reggie Bush experience.

He started his fifth NFL season by returning his 2005 Heisman Trophy, embarrassed by illegal gift-receiving scandals during his USC time. Two games into this season he fractured his right fibula returning a punt in a Monday night clash against the 49ers. In recent days his continued Kim Kardashian episodes have been the buzz of reality TV and gossip.

But Bush, 25, realizes in this league that just when you get hot, something else sizzles. You got a headache? Somebody else has a migraine.

Randy Moss is currently unemployed and the Vikings look dim-witted for having wasted a precious third-round draft pick on a worthless month-long experiment -- Moss didn't fool them once, he fooled them twice. Donovan McNabb has quickly moved his relationship with the Washington coaches closer to the edgy one he just left in Philadelphia. TO and Ochocinco are 2-5 and the Bengals offense is broken.

Buffalo is winless (0-7) and even took overtime last week at Kansas City to extend their torture. Denver has lost four in a row and at 2-6 looks beyond fractured. Dallas (1-6) is contemplating what to do now, what to do tomorrow and what this franchise should look like by its 2011 training camp -- if there is, indeed, football and no lockout.

Michael Vick is back wondering how to get all the way back.

So, Reggie Bush surveys all of this and knows that he is a story, he is a lightning rod, but he is not the center of the NFL universe. He is, though, at the core of what the Saints are and what they need to become to repeat as champions.

This Saints offense has been tripping over itself for much of the season. Finally, against the Steelers here on Sunday night, especially in the final quarter, it solved the Steelers' defense and found ways to make big offensive plays without Bush in winning, 20-10.

Bush says he thinks he could play this weekend when the Saints travel to Carolina. He thinks missing that game and then using a bye week before a return on Nov. 21 at home versus Seattle may make more sense. That date of return would mean seven games for Bush to help push the Saints back into the playoffs and back toward the Super Bowl.

I don't think they get there without him.


Read the entire article Reggie Bush Remains Key to Saints' Dreams -- NFL FanHouse

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Saints plan to bring pain on champ’s curse

Only one Super Bowl winner repeated in the last decade – the 2004 New England Patriots.  It’s been bleak for everyone else. No other team has returned to the Super Bowl or even reached the conference championship game.  Four of the 10 teams failed to qualify for the playoffs, including the Pittsburgh Steelers last season.

The Lombardi Trophy hangover is real, even for teams that don’t have Bourbon Street a few blocks from their stadium.  Whether it’s the lingering celebration, the loss of motivation or simply the increased demands (business and otherwise) the NFL is not kind to its champions.

So here come the New Orleans Saints, who open their “title defense” (a misnomer since they can’t “lose” their Super Bowl trophy) Thursday against the Minnesota Vikings.   They have vowed, like everyone always does, to reverse the trend.

Come Thursday night 1st game. X marks the spot.”

Favre has refused to take the bait, saying he had no problem with how the Saints played.   His teammates are less forgiving. Defensive end Jared Allen(notes) dubbed Williams as a purveyor of “meathead comments.”  Running back Adrian Peterson promised it’s the Vikings who are “going to be the ones delivering the blows.”

The Saints have fired back arguing Favre gets preferential treatment and calling him “bitter.”

Around and around it has gone. And for the Saints, that’s a good thing.

The trash talk and X-marks-the-spot lines are unnecessary and probably ineffective – guys have been trying to knock Iron Man Brett out of games for two decades.   They do serve a purpose by both adding focus and ferocity to the Saints’ preparation.

For all of the pyrotechnics of Drew Brees(notes) and the offense (best in the league last year), the Saints needed their physical, in-your-face defense to create victories.   Their point differential was a league-high 10.6 points a game.

This isn’t the NFL’s most talented defense.   It can’t just turn it on the way Baltimore or San Francisco or the New York Jets can.   It lacks the personnel. The Saints need a chip on their shoulder in order to thrive.   They are at their best when they are bitter, aggressive and playing with something to prove.

Attempting to silence the Vikings may be just what they needed.    It might explain why Williams was willing to fuel the controversy with his summer comments.

Motivation is motivation, and when it comes to Super Bowl champions it isn’t always easy to find.

“Most of the challenges become internal, dealing with success,” Payton said last summer.

An angry Saints defense is, presumably, not thinking about raised banners and roaring fans.   They are ready for some football – smash-mouth style. The night is about the fight.

Ultimately it may not help against the Vikings.   It should have little bearing on midseason or January.

Right now it can’t hurt though. It’s a sign they are serious.   After so many defending champs that weren’t prepared for the season after the glory, maybe this shows the Saints actually are different.

 

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Marques Colston: "Marq-ing his Turf"

With the exception of an injury plagued 2008 season, from the time Marques Colston entered the league as a seventh round draft pick from a small Division I-AA school in The Empire State, he has recorded over 1,000 yards a year. And yet, Drew Brees is the most recognizable face in New Orleans. No receiver in the history of the National Football League has caught more passes in his first two seasons than Colston. But, whether it is from tarnishing his collegiate reputation or from dating a millionaire celebrity socialite, it is the name Reggie Bush that covers the sport pages across America’s newspaper. Nicknamed “The Quiet Storm” for his reserved and non-confrontational demeanor, Marques Colston is a perfect blend or size, speed, and power. Combined with his team-first attitude and work ethic, Colston is the ideal teammate, and the unquestionable paragon of consistency in the National Football League. So why doesn’t his name come to mind when you think of the elite receivers in professional football? Could it be because he was selected in the last round of the 2006 NFL Draft? Unlike many top tier wideouts in the league, Colston’s orientation into the NFL came as an unrecognized 6’4, 225 pounder from Hofstra – a school that has since terminated its football program. Compare that to teammate Reggie Bush, who entered the league as the Heisman Trophy winning running back from the decades-long football powerhouse of Southern California. Colston was so overlooked by every NFL team that he was the 28th receiver selected in the draft. In fact, he wasn’t even one of the top five receivers selected in the 7th round. Colston had to wait while 251 players were drafted ahead of him before he would hear his name being called – with the fourth to last pick in that 7th round. For two long days, he heard the names of fellow receivers Chad Jackson, Travis Wilson, Derek Hagan, Jason Avant, and Skyler Green being called, wondering when he would get the opportunity to show the rest of the league why they just made one of the greatest mistakes in draft history. To make matters worse, Colston wasn’t even the first player selected from his own college. That honor went to Willie Colon, who was selected in the 4th round by the Pittsburgh Steelers. Unlike many of his fellow wide receivers, where showboating and thinking of the next provocative end zone celebration come first, Colston shies away from the limelight. In fact, he shies away from nearly all aspects of self-promotion, even when it will benefit him financially. Colston has not only declined an invitation to be a presenter at a gospel music awards show, but also turned down an opportunity to do a Campbell’s soup commercial with some of his fellow NFL players, including Donovan McNabb. Imagine reality television star Terrell Owens and hourly Twitter tweeter Chad “Johnson” Ochocinco balking at those self-marketing opportunities. Not likely. Read the entire article Silent, but deadly - Why the Saints' Marques Colston has quitely become the best receiver in the NFL

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No False Starts anymore for Saints and Brown

Flozell Adams and Jammal Brown have been the most penalized Offensive Left Tackles for "false starts in the NFL the past several years.   After the 2009 season's Super Bowl Championship anchored by backup LT Jermon Bushrod, the Saints did not hesitate to unload disgruntled former Pro-Bowl and first-round draft pick to the Redskins.  The 'Skins get a quality LT with great size, however, Brown did sit-out 2009 on IR with an injured hip. Redskins Confidential posted an article, that "Skins coaches will switch Brown to RT.  He played this position at Oklahoma.

At least that's how it would appear when training camp starts six weeks from now. Hicks said he was told by line coach Chris Foerster that he would play right guard and that Brown would play right tackle. "It's a great move, man," Hicks said. "The tackle situation will be shored up now... It's the best situation for the team, coming from last year you have to do everything you can to upgrade the roster at every spot. That's a definite upgrade at right tackle."

Read more at the Washington Examiner: http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/sports/blogs/redskins-confidential/Displaced-Hicks-likes-trade-96731239.html#ixzz0rLn0rFO6

Will the trade payoff for McNabb's quest for his first Super Bowl ring, or will this be another solid trade by Saints GM Loomis?