Canal Street Chronicles, a New Orleans Saints community

"It's different," Harper said. "I'm enjoying it. It's going to be exciting. I'm just looking forward to the season and just trying to stay calm and focused and make sure this is the best that I've had in the NFL."

"It's a trial-and-error thing right now, " said veteran safety Pierson Prioleau, who spent seven of the past eight years playing under new Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams in Buffalo, Washington and Jacksonville. "We're just trying a whole lot of new things right now. We're a long way from home. So we don't really even know what we're going to do in this defense.

"But you're definitely going to see the best variation of things that we can give you so we can get the best 11 on the field."