NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue said it’s unlikely the Saints will play in New Orleans this season after the devastation Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath inflicted on the city.
“At this point you have to proceed on the assumption … that they may be unable to play in New Orleans at all for the entire season,” Tagliabue said Thursday in an interview with CNBC. “If things evolve in a positive way, then that would be something that we could adjust to. But our assumption is that for planning purposes, we should assume it will be difficult if not impossible to play in New Orleans at all this year.”
The Saints will move into a hotel in San Antonio this weekend and practice there in preparation for their regular-season opener at Carolina on Sept. 11. They have spent this week in San Jose, Calif., and played their final exhibition Thursday night in Oakland, Calif.
But it still hasn’t been decided where they will play their home opener Sept. 18 against the New York Giants or play the rest of their home games.
The New Jersey Sports & Exposition Authority, which runs Giants Stadium, has offered to host the upcoming Giants-Saints game there.
It likely would be played Monday, Sept. 19 because the Jets will play Miami that Sunday at Giants Stadium.
Tagliabue said moving the game to New Jersey was one possibility.
He also said games could be played at another NFL stadium or at a non-NFL stadium. He didn’t name any specifically, but the Alamodome in San Antonio seats 65,000 for football, about the same as the Saints’ regular home at the Superdome in New Orleans, which was heavily damaged by Katrina.
Tagliabue, who announced Wednesday the NFL was donating $1 million to the recovery effort, added the emphasis should be the total recovery of the region hit by the hurricane.
“We want to really emphasize above all that sport is a small part of life,” Tagliabue said. “We want to use our visibility and the respect we have with the public and the respect our teams have to support the national recovery program. That’s the big thing.”
Chiefs: Doctors have placed a stent in an artery in Trent Green’s lower left leg and put the quarterback on blood-thinners in an effort to restore full circulation.
Green, who underwent four operations on his left knee six years ago, will not play in tonight’s exhibition game at St. Louis but does plan to be ready for the Sept. 11 season opener against the Jets.
“By Wednesday, I’ll be able to do everything full-go and be ready to go with no complications or problems for the opener,” Green said. “That was one of the things I wanted to find out.”
Doctors were not able to say with certainty what caused the condition that led to numbness and lack of feeling in the leg and foot and caused him to come out of last Saturday’s game against the Seattle Seahawks in the first quarter.
It may be related to the succession of surgeries Green required after his knee injury in the 1999 preseason. But doctors are not pointing to football contact as the cause.
“That’s the hard part for me is not knowing how it happened,” said Green, who underwent the surgery Tuesday. “I really haven’t taken any sort of hits or uncomfortable twists or turns or anything like that that could have done it.”
Anything that keeps Green on the sideline could be disastrous for the Chiefs. His backup, Todd Collins, has a hand injury and probably won’t be ready by the season opener. Damon Huard, the No. 3 quarterback, has been nursing head trauma but probably will play tonight.
Starting against the Rams will be Jonathan Quinn, a journeyman who was out of football and living in the Kansas City area when the Chiefs called him two weeks ago. Quinn played the rest of the game against the Seahawks after Green came out in the first quarter.
“It’s crazy. I’ve never been involved with anything like this,” Green said. “You hear of one guy going down, or at the most, two. But to have three guys.”
The stent, a device that widens the artery, will remain for the rest of his life, Green said. Because bleeding injuries are common in football, he will be taken off the blood thinner before each game.
Colts: Indianapolis, hoping to fix its one glaring weakness, reached a multiyear agreement with Corey Simon, a Pro Bowl defensive tackle released by the Philadelphia Eagles in a contract dispute.
Simon wanted a long-term deal with Philadelphia and refused to sign a one-year franchise tender. The Eagles removed the franchise tag on the former first-round draft pick Sunday, making him an unrestricted free agent.
The Colts were quick to pounce.
“You can chase a lot of these guys, but if they don’t have a motivation, you’re usually spinning your wheels,” coach Tony Dungy said. “When we talked to him early on, it was evident we were one of the places he was truly interested in. We felt we had something good to offer, and he felt the same way.”
Simon, who has 32 sacks in his five-year NFL career, probably will be in Indianapolis today for a physical. Dungy said Simon might join the team in Cincinnati for the final preseason game tonight, but he would not play.
“It’s going to be different for him,” Dungy said. “We play a completely different style than Philadelphia. He’s going to have to get used to that, get used to our terminology. It’s not going to be the type of thing where he’s going to come in and all of a sudden everything’s going to click for us. We’ve got to get him going.
“He played in a system similar to this at Florida State, so it’ll be a little bit of muscle memory. But he’ll help us very quickly, I think.”
