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It almost looked like the New Orleans Saints were about to rustle some feathers at Tuesday’s training camp practice. Newly-signed kicker Brett Maher was in the building, but he needed a jersey number — and specialists like him are restricted to wearing everything from Nos. 1 through 19. Of those possibilities, all but Nos. 8 and 9 were unclaimed.
And those are, well, accounted for. Archie Manning wore No. 8 back in the day as New Orleans’ first franchise player. Drew Brees made No. 9 his signature during the team’s most successful era. Neither of those jerseys are going to be made available for a temp hire.
So as it happened, veteran cornerback Patrick Robinson retired from the NFL on the same day. His departure freed up No. 21, which was quickly picked up by Prince Amukamara, another corner. Amukamara had previously worn No. 6, which was then assigned to Maher. Did you catch all that?
We’ll see who is wearing what in the weeks ahead. Teams must begin making roster cuts after each preseason game, with the first wave of releases to be filed Tuesday, Aug. 17. That’s going to free up numbers for other players and we could see some of them swap jerseys as the regular season approaches. And if something as superficial as jersey numbers is the biggest news of the day at Saints training camp, we’ll be doing pretty well.
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