Open practice with the Saints
 

It was interesting to see the two different schools of thought, when it came to stretching, NO is old school.

The teams divided our 1st team offense v their 1st team D' on the near field, and the opposite on the middle field. So not much to report on the defense today.

Rehab notes: Did notice Travis Johnson and Chris Myers doing some hard running on the far field. Both of them should be back soon. On the stationary bikes we had Reeves, a good sign, Grossman, also appears better than expected, and finally Foster. Didn't anyone tell the kid you cannot make the team from the tub?

Did not see Cushing or Pitts, I most likely just missed them.

As for drills, not much new other than Briesel getting a rep at OC with the 1st teamers. He and White flipped, I only caught it once, so not sure of the motive.

aj has better notes and I am sure his report will be much more complete than mine.

OH and our Offense seemed to have the upper hand on their defense.

One funny note, Jacoby Jones working in a one on drill, really beat his man bad on double move, and as the two ran back to the "huddle", aj yelled down to the saints db, hey that our 3rd teamer whooping your butt, the DB flashed a look up at us. It was to funny.

Nice. Thanks for the firsthand account.

I got there just as warmups were ending and walked over to the second field.

The middle of field had 7 on 7 drills, first Texans offense , I did see Chester Pitts at LG on a few plays. Noticed a bad pass or two from Brink. Texan receivers did pretty well. Especially JJ.

First , near on right Texans TE's , all 5, were doing a variety of blocking schemes.

Then right in front of me, the Texans DL did one on one against NO OL. They all would rotate thru, do two plays, rotate out. Barwin, Okam, Cody, and of course Mario looked best to me. Bulman, Okoye, Smith not bad. They all rushed hard on bark and got corrected if they tried to analyze or move slowly. I'd say we will get push and penetration from front four, whoever is in, if this drill was an indication of what will happen in a real game.

Latter, In 7 on 7 with NO on offense, it looked like Texas LB and DB's held their own against NO first team. Guys were rotating from field to field.

Turk was really booming the kicks on third field.

Overall, two teams seemed to have a bunch of friends on other team. NO seemed to have more of the bigger/wider guys, but Texans, perhaps looked quicker.

http://myespn.go.com/blogs/afcsouth/...us-Saints.html

All about the DL in 1-on-1 drills.

The Texans DL on NO OL drill was real interesting. Each of our 11 guys DL got 2 reps against three different OL, so everyone on each side got to see some different techniques and people. The DL coaching was nice to be able to hear as well. Barwin is quick and learns well, and he's not small either. He did get pancaked one time, he was trying to run low, under RT arms, and the guy just buried him, not holding.

"Other notes on the pass-rush period:
Saints highly regarded right guard Jahri Evans stopped Amobi Okoye twice, seemingly with ease."
** From the above ESPN link posted by Barrett **
*********************************
Dang, I don't like the sounds of that ?

I'll temper it with some good, although hardly shocking, news -

"Williams ran right though Jammal Brown, leaving the starting left tackle flat on his back."

From what I saw, Okeye had a total of 6 rushes , probably 2 of 6 were against Jahri Evans. Okeye always got 2 or more steps into the backfield, on 3 or 4 other rushes, against other RG or OC, he got further into the backfied., atleast twice got free toward QB stand-in.

For Williams, on the one referenced rush, he kind of surprized the LT and slung him to the ground. But on the next rush he was directed in direction LT desired, but did get back 5 or 6 steps but not toward the QB.

All of our DL had some good rushes, and some learning opportunities. Generally I was real pleased with what I saw, even from guys not mentioned in the article.

For instance, on coaching if a DL got beat or gave up, he was asked to finish the next play, push harder. If DL tried to read first then rush he was told to rush faster, dont' wait to take off. He he slipped, he was told to keep his balance, so forth. And then if they DL was stopped, it might be - keep his hands off of you. Good and bad immediate feedback. very good.

They must have had a half-dozen fights at todays practice, but the headline story so far from the Texans perspective is we lost another backer - Cato June reportedly broke a forearm.
There was big turnout with a lot of Saints fans in attendance and also the UH & Rice college teams. And man was it hot out there !

Darn. From Cato on Twitter:

From the chron - 6 fights: Headliners; Demeco vs. Shockey, Leach vs. DT Rod Coleman....

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/...t/6580151.html

It was nice to see demeco and xavier jump on shockey

And one guy in the pile without a helment, Travis Johnson, yes the guys who is rehabing from hernia surgery, jumping in the middle. Not to smart. But he does have his guys back.

Jamaal Brown is having his groin checked out and not expected to play Saturday so there's a reason Mario treated him like a rag doll.

Was it hurt before or after yesterday's practice? If his groin is being checked out now it likely had nothing to do with Mario dumping him yesterday.

I love the caption for the video. "Saints tight end Jeremy Shockey squared off with several Texans during a practice." Makes it sound like Shockey's the hero in a Jet Li movie or something instead of getting slung around by DeMeco after mouthing off.

I went to yesterdays practice and there was a ton of Saints fans attending, but no surprise there since way before Katrina there's always been lots of LA natives living and working in Houston. And I heard way back in the 80s when I arrived in Houston that it had more LSU grads than any other city.
Anyway, what a shame the 2 citys can't be in a common NFL division ? The geography and all, the love of football both states and both citys have, it would such a tremendous rivalry. Maybe it could happen the next time the league reorganizes ?

This is one of those times when I wish we still had the HPF board up and running since we had these convo's logged (though this one may have been far enough back to pre-date our transtion to vBulletin) but I digress...

Saints owner Tom Benson had proposed to put the Texans in the NFC in a division that would have included the Falcons and Bucs in addition to his Saints team. Benson reportedly wanted a "Gulf South" division.

McNair had wanted his yet unnamed team to fall back on its Oilers roots and play in the AFC with the Bengals, Steelers, and Browns.

The notion of the Texans in the NFC was always a pipe dream. The Texans were almost pre-ordained as an AFC team from before the franchise was awarded to McNair, I think mostly because of the TV rights aspect.

Funny to think about this stuff as somewhat nostalgic now. Time flies, eh?

I think Benson's idea would have been a good one. I don't like being in the same division with a team that was, for so many years, ours!