"Yeah, they were the worst defense," Butler said. "But you look at the players, we don't have the worst defensive players. These are guys who are Super Bowl champions, Pro Bowls at one point. These are great teammates. These are great football players.

"You get a guy like Rob, you get a guy like Keenan Lewis and you add him to the secondary, you get a guy like me who can come in and help guys pick up this defense, and you're going to see a hell of a defense. That's what I'm expecting. A hell of a defense.

"We've already got the players to be the No. 1 defense. You get a defensive coordinator in there, a guy who's going to be compassionate and convey that passion to the players, I wouldn't be surprised if we were the No. 1 defense in all categories next year."

Re: Bernard Pollard of the Ravens

"Since 2007, only Roman Harper has more tackles from the Safety position"

Tiny bit #Tebow news: he'd like to go where he can sit, learn behind great QB & coach. New Orleans would be perfect, for example.

The New Orleans defense was so consistently miserable last year that a player like Vaccaro can have a substantial impact as a rookie simply by virtue of his ability to hold down his part of the fort, allowing DC Rob Ryan to scheme around other deficiencies and hope for the emergence of some semblance of DL play from younger Saints. Though it's unlikely that Vaccaro can turn the Saints D around by himself, he's an important part of the infrastructure for building out a real defense. New Orleans fans will look back at this draft and be happy with this selection.

Payton said he looks at the left tackle spot on his depth chart board as being blank. Issue with Charles Brown is not being "available."

Drew Brees will be on Person to Person Friday Nov 23rd at 10pm est 9pm cst. Check it out!

Saints Beat Falcons again... The game is on NFL Replay tonight (right now) and tomorrow at 2pm. Set your DVRs.

"They're like our little brothers. Deep down they know they can't mess with us even when we are having a down year."

In a conference call with the Atlanta media before the Saints’ game with the Falcons, Vitt said that he believes Pierre Thomas, Chris Ivory and Mark Ingram didn’t get involved enough in the offense while he was gone, and he made a point of changing that in the Saints’ Monday night win over the Eagles.

When Parcells joined the Dolphins as executive vice president of football operations last year, his deal included a onetime out clause that would allow him to walk away, with the rest of his $12 million guaranteed contract fully paid, no strings attached, if Huizenga were to sell the team.