Saints return outdoors for Tuesday workout

Written by Les East | Tuesday, 04 August 2009 19:19 | Saints News

METAIRIE - The Saints conducted their first outdoor afternoon practice of training camp Tuesday.

The Saints allowed fans to move from the bleachers on the north side of the facility and stand on the south side to get a better look at team drills, which took place on the south side.

Numerous Saints players signed autographs in the rain after practice, including QB Drew Brees and WR Lance Moore who were signing nearly a half hour after the workout ended.

New Orleans did its first red-zone work of camp. In the first period, RB Lynell Hamilton stood out for his hard running inside.

WR D'Juan Woods (abdomen) and TE Dan Campbell (knee) sat out the workout. WR Adrian Arrington (hamstring) and LB Joe-Lonn Dunbar (hamstring) were limited.

On the first play of the final team period, Brees dropped back to pass, pulled the ball down, and ran for a short gain.

TE Jeremy Shockey got big cheers when he made a couple of catches in the red zone. He made a couple of big catches there," Brees said. "He busted through a couple of arms to get in the end zone. That's absolutely an area where he comes in handy."

LB Jonathan Vilma made strong stop of RB Pierre Thomas for no gain.

TE Buck Ortega got behind S Chris Reis to catch a Mark Brunell pass right at the sideline in the end zone. Reis signaled incomplete, but it was unclear whether Ortega got his feet in bounds or not.

"We got a lot of good reps in," coach Sean Payton said. "It was a good day of practice."

Payton said RB Reggie Bush, who has missed two practices to rest his surgically repaired left knee, has had "a great camp," running with physicality and improving in his pass protection.

Brees was asked about Monday's practices in which defensive backs made five interceptions and got their hands on several other passes.

"I'll be the first one to tell you that the defense had our number yesterday," Brees said. "They stuck it to us. We wanted to respond today with a good practice and I feel like we did. But you certainly can't sit back on your laurels at any point during training camp because the installation continues so you're always in that learning mode while at the same time having to stay up on the same stuff that we've already installed."

• Drew Brees post-practice transcript

Brees said he and WR Marques Colston are regaining the rhythm they lost last season because of the limitations Colston had due to a thumb injury.

"We're only (five) days into camp here; it really takes camp and preseason and just getting those live reps to kind of get back on the same page," Brees said. "Any time you're injured and are out for an extended period of time - and especially when it's a thumb deal like Marques had - it kind of affected the way that he would catch the ball and where I could throw the ball - and so it made a difference.

"He wasn't catching the ball the same because the thumb wasn't able to move like it used to with the brace that he had on it. Now that he's out here and he's 100 percent and we're able to get this time together, we'll get that chemistry back."

On Tuesday morning, the Saints had a special teams walkthrough, weighlifting, and meetings.

General manager Mickey Loomis said the Saints are still talking with representatives of first-round draft choice Malcolm Jenkins, but said there wasn't significant progress.

The Saints will practice twice Wednesday. The first practice, which begins at 8:50 a.m., is scheduled to be outdoors and open to the public, weather permitting. The afternoon practice is scheduled for 4:20 in the indoor facility and will be closed to the public.

Comments (1)

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written by sainta claus, August 05, 2009

good article les, i would like to know more about adrian arrington and could the saints help him with the hamstring problem by sending him to shilstone. Didnt they send stallworth to him when he had all those hamstring problems early on.

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