What you missed this week with the New Orleans Saints

The New Orleans Saints are sitting high and mighty at 6-2 and hold the NFC’s No. 2 playoff seed entering Week 10. Without question, they’re entering a very crucial part of their season with two of their next three games coming on the road. It’s certainly been a fun week for Sean Payton’s squad, and here’s a few things you may or may not have missed since Monday.

Quick Hits

• Kenny Vaccaro is out against the Bills in Week 10, while both Terron Armstead and Larry Warford remain questionable.
• The Saints will be in white jerseys and black pants for their game.
• Alvin Kamara took down two weekly NFL awards for his Week 9 performance: FedEx Ground Player of the Week and Pepsi Rookie of the Week.
• Justin Hardee won NFC Special Teams Player of the Week.
• Bryce Harris is back on the Saints roster, again. The Saints released John Hughes to claim him, but then re-signed him and released John Greco.
• Mike Evans was suspended for a game for his cheap shot on Marshon Lattimore, which was upheld after the appeals process. Jameis Winston was also fined for his role, to the tune of $12,154. Lattimore and teammate De’Vante Harris (who came to Lattimore’s aid) were not.
• Delvin Breaux won’t be playing in 2017, as Sean Payton said they’ll keep him on injured reserve the rest of the season.

This is probably the best GIF of the season.

Sean Payton isn’t too worried about the weather conditions in Buffalo.

“It will be a colder game than we have played, but we played in cold weather games and I think this week couldn’t have been better here, with the wind and I think they are calling for low 40s, nine mile an hour or eight mile an hour wind, which is probably a little less than what we’ve had here. But each venue is different, this is kind of a historic place when you look at the stadium and when it was built, the way it’s built. Most of it is underground. From its highest point I think it’s 80 feet to the ground. I think this is a good football environment and if you said Buffalo in November and it was going to be in the high 30s, low 40s (I’ll take that). I think it’s good football weather.”

Twitter rolled out the ability to have 280 characters in your tweets now, and the pettiness came out.

Kenny Vaccaro, Cam Jordan finally experiencing stability after merry-go-round of defensive teammates the past 5 seasons | theadvocate.com
“A lot of turnover every year doesn’t lead to what you would call stability,” Jordan said. “Normally I say a defense plays well because you’re confident in everyone’s stability; when you have a young group, you don’t know what you have. And then when you have turnover, as we have had in the last couple years, there is no such thing as stability.”

“It’s starting to be to where they know exactly how I’m going to play, and that allows me to do so much more as far as wreaking havoc and plays not getting busted,” Vaccaro said. “They know exactly what I’m doing, and we don’t have to talk about as much anymore. It will be even better after another year. This is just the first year, and we’ve already kind of meshed together.”

Saints' Gerald Hodges treating return to Buffalo as another game | NOLA.com
"There are no mixed emotions or anything and I'm not upset over anything that happened with them releasing me," Hodges said. "I'm not upset at all."

"I wouldn't say there is some extra juice, but deep down inside I definitely feel some type of way," he said. "I don't want to go out there and let my emotions take over.

Eagles headed for trouble? Saints, Jaguars poised to surprise? - NFL.com
That said, the Saints have the look of a team nobody wants to see in the postseason. They have the best quarterback in the bunch, as Drew Brees is still capable of posting big numbers and he's the only signal caller among the current NFC division leaders with a Super Bowl ring. Head coach Sean Payton also has done something that was beginning to seem impossible: He's placed more faith in his running game and cultivated a defense that has played with confidence and conviction. The Saints are currently sixth in the league in scoring (27.6 points per game), seventh in rushing (122.8 yards per game) and ninth in points allowed (19.4 per game). Now consider this: Every time Payton has had a team that ranked at least 20th in scoring defense, he's made the playoffs. That's about to be the case once again this season -- and the rest of the conference better beware.

Kenny Albert and Ronde Barber will be your broadcast team for Sunday, and Terry McAulay is the referee.