Just as the Indianapolis Colts say they will extend quarterback Peyton Manning’s contract this offseason, the New Orleans Saints will do the same for their quarterback, Drew Brees, according to sources close to the situation.

The Saints intend to redo Brees’ deal later this year to bring his salary more in line with the game’s top quarterbacks. This season Brees was the 17th-highest paid quarterback in the league, yet he finished second in the league in MVP voting and led New Orleans to the first Super Bowl in franchise history.

New Orleans considered extending Brees’ contract last offseason, but opted to wait another year. Now that it has, the price only has risen with Brees performing the way he has. Should the Saints win Super Bowl XLIV, Brees practically would be able to name his price.

Discussions on a new deal have yet to begin, but they will this offseason. A contract is expected to be wrapped up by the time the Saints report to training camp if not during it, but nobody around the league expects Brees to play the 2010 season under the six-year, $60 million contract that he signed in March 2006.

Click here to read the full article – By Adam Schefter of ESPN.com

How many football lives does Darren Sharper have?

We’ve counted him out at least twice before. There was his departure from Green Bay after the 2004 season, one spurred because the Packers thought he was in marked decline. The next season, Sharper was an All-Pro in Minnesota.

After last season, the Vikings thought he couldn’t help them anymore, and like the Packers, they let him depart via free agency. After two months on the market, New Orleans signed him to a one-year deal worth about $1.5 million.

In 2009, he was an All-Pro once again.

Sharper’s career renaissance with the Saints has been a testament to conditioning, motivation and smart instincts. More than anything, however, it provided a template for how to use, waste and misjudge the specific skills of a player.

In 2004, the Packers blamed a lack of speed — rather than a knee injury — on Sharper’s decline in play. From 2006-08, the Vikings squeezed him into a Cover 2 scheme that minimized his playmaking abilities.

Click here to read the full article – By Kevin Seifert of ESPN.com

A 40-yard field goal in overtime by a little-known kicker could become as famous as jambalaya in these parts.

The New Orleans Saints, a team with no home and an uncertain future five years ago, are heading for their first Super Bowl. By battering Brett Favre and beating the Minnesota Vikings 31-28 Sunday, they set off celebrations on Bourbon Street that locals never could have imagined in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

“This is for everybody in this city,” said coach Sean Payton, the architect of the Saints’ turnaround. “This stadium used to have holes in it and used to be wet. It’s not wet anymore. This is for the city of New Orleans.”

And it came courtesy of Garrett Hartley and the Aints — who surely ain’t the Aints anymore.

Click here to read the full article – By Associated Press of ESPN.com

Reggie Bush danced around defenders who fell over each other trying to tackle him. Drew Brees was back to passing with pinpoint accuracy, picking apart a beleaguered and depleted Arizona secondary.

A little rest was all the Saints needed to shift their league-leading offense back into overdrive.

That, and a visit from Arizona’s porous defense.

Brees threw three touchdown passes, Bush scored on an 83-yard punt return and a spectacular 46-yard run, and New Orleans overwhelmed the defending NFC champion Cardinals 45-14 in their divisional playoff game Saturday.

“So much for being rusty,” Saints coach Sean Payton said. “That bye week was critical, getting guys healthy. … I knew we were ready, the way we worked all week and we were confident in what we were going to do.”

Click here to read the full article – By Associated Press of ESPN.com

New Orleans running back Pierre Thomas left the Saints’ game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers with bruised ribs.


The injury appeared to occur during the second quarter of Sunday’s game on a 26-yard run. After being looked at by trainers on the sideline, Thomas went back into the game, but team officials said in the second half that he would sit out the remainder of the game.

Thomas is New Orleans’ leading rusher with 793 yards this season, including 60 yards and an 8-yard touchdown in the first half against the Buccaneers.

Click here to read the full article – By Associated Press of ESPN.com

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The surface the New Orleans Saints play upon at the Louisiana Superdome is indeed artificial. And, since “The Greatest Show on Sportexe Momentum” doesn’t quite have the same ring to it, the 2009 Saints are drawing direct comparisons to those St. Louis Rams teams that turned the Edward Jones Dome scoreboard into a veritable pinball machine- counter as the 20th century gave way to the 21st.

The resemblance, in many ways is uncanny.

In the Rams’ stage production, the role of clinically-accurate signal-caller was played by Kurt Warner, who won two league MVP awards in three years on the strength of his right arm. Though smaller in stature, Drew Brees is, like Warner, a quarterback who can hit a target on either eye from 40 yards away and is generally impossible to pressure (just ask the Giants) due to a quick delivery and motherboard-fast decision-making ability.

Playing the role of savant-like play-caller, the one St. Louis filled with the professorial Mike Martz, is head coach Sean Payton. Like Martz, Payton attacks, attacks, and attacks some more, keeping opponents off balance with an intricate scheme built around the short pass but also fully capable of a ground-chewing power run or a highlight-reel-worthy deep throw.


Click here to read the full article – By Tony Moss of The Sports Network

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The New Orleans Saints, 4-0 for just the third time in the team’s history, earned a well-deserved day off from Head Coach Sean Payton today at the beginning of their bye week before returning to practice tomorrow at the team’s Metairie headquarters.

Following their 24-10 win over the previously undefeated New York Jets in a late afternoon showdown at the Superdome, the Saints players can allow their bodies to heal from not only the first four games of the regular season, but also the team’s four preseason games and before that, a physically demanding training camp. The Saints’ bye week actually falls pretty much in the middle of football calendar season, as the team has been together for 10 weeks thus far in 2009 counting the beginning of training camp and with 12 weeks following their bye of regular season action in front of them.

Click here to read the full article – By Doug Miller of NewOrleansSaints.com

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Put aside the video game-like numbers Sean Payton and Drew Brees have teamed up to produce in one of the most prolific coach-quarterback relationships in the NFL.

The scariest thing about the 2009 Saints may be the way they proved they could win at Buffalo last weekend – with dominant defense and a relentless running game.

By holding Brees to his quietest performance in more than a year, the Bills managed to provide the Saints’ offense a chance to show they could win with a blue-collar approach.

“You’ve got to prove who you are,” right tackle Jon Stinchomb said. “You can’t just say, ‘Well, we’ve worked on our run game and now we’re more of a balanced team.’ You have to go out there on Sundays and create your identity, and I think this is one of those games where we’re trying to prove we’re not a finesse team.”

Click here to read the full article – By BRETT MARTEL of sunherald.com

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