Tag: facility

NWS says a small tornado made a brief touchdown near Saints practice facility

That was a close one. The National Weather Service says a small tornado made a brief touchdown near the Saints practice facility on Saturday:

That was a close one: the National Weather Service says a small tornado briefly touched down near the New Orleans Saints’ practice facility on Saturday, which is a series of words you really can’t take lightly no matter carefully they’re worded. It’s very fortunate to no one was injured.

Storm bands rolling in off the Gulf of Mexico hammered the Gulf South on Saturday morning, spawning a few waterspouts — including a tornado the NWS rated at EF-0 with peak winds reaching 70 miles per hour. NWS investigators found that the tornado only lasted two minutes, beginning at 11:11 a.m. CT and dissipating at 11:13 a.m. CT while approaching a maximum width of just 75 yards. Its path traveled less than a fifth of a mile up Minor Street in Kenner, starting just shy of the Mississippi River and collapsing before it reached Kenner Avenue or Airline Drive. The track was just 3.5 miles west of the Ochsner Sports Performance Center

“A combination of radar, images/videos and surveys by emergency management led us to this determination,” the NWS said in a statement.

Again, we’re very fortunate that the weather incident resulted in no injuries or severe damage. But it’s still a near-miss. We’re doubly lucky that the Saints were off on Saturday with players excused for the weekend. They’ll return to the facility on Monday to kick off a week of preparations for Sept. 10’s regular season kickoff game with the Tennessee Titans. Hopefully this is the last of any strong winds we’ll see in New Orleans for a while, but you never know in hurricane season.

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Peter Schrager says Sean Payton gave the Saints a pep talk before Raiders blowout

NFL Network host Peter Schrager says Sean Payton gave the Saints a pep talk before they beat the Raiders, their only win in five games:

Well this isn’t what you want to hear. NFL Network host Peter Schrager was a guest on the Bill Simmons Podcast this week, and he shared a nugget about the New Orleans Saints — who have won just a single game out of their last five matchups, which Schrager credits to a surprise “pep talk” from former Saints head coach Sean Payton ahead of their 24-0 blowout win against the Las Vegas Raiders in Week 8.

“But I’ll tell you what’s interesting about (the Saints), I don’t know that it was reported at the time but I can say it now,” Schrager began. He continued, chuckling, “Sean Payton popped in because he had something to do in New Orleans, and like gave them a pep talk that week, they won 24-nothing. And then Sean Payton leaves, and it’s like, maybe the worst thing he could have done was give them a taste of the Sean Payton magic. Because they won 24-nothing once he lit a fire under their asses, he called out the defense, then he goes back to L.A. where he’s living in Manhattan Beach or wherever, they’re back to not being able to stop or score any points, you know?”

It had been reported that Payton visited the facility to catch up with old friends, but this is the first we’ve heard of him addressing the team. It’s a really bad look for Dennis Allen that the only game his team has won over the last month came after his old boss spent a few hours in the facility. Maybe Payton was doing him a favor in hyping up the squad for a game against the franchise that once fired Allen as head coach.

Regardless of anyone’s motivations here, this report doesn’t do much to help quiet the narrative of Allen working as a substitute teacher while Payton is on hiatus. Odds are Payton won’t return to New Orleans once he’s ready to coach again, even though the Saints might try and move mountains to win him back. But incidents like this only make it harder to tell what’s really going on, and to guess at what might be up next. We’ll just have to wait and see how things develop as the Saints finish out their season.

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NFL plans to reopen team facilities, but Saints to wait for training camp

New Orleans Saints defensive coordinator Dennis Allen said the coaching staff will wait until training camp to regroup at the team facility

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The NFL issued a four-part memo to all 32 teams on Monday laying out guidelines for the reopening of team facilities, closed due to the novel coronavirus pandemic, but the New Orleans Saints aren’t in a hurry to regroup at their Metairie headquarters.

Saints defensive coordinator Dennis Allen said as much in a Monday conference call with local media, explaining that head coach Sean Payton had told his staff they would wait for a return in time for training camp later this summer.

“We’re handling everything that we can remotely,” Allen told Nola.com’s Luke Johnson. “At this time of year, if the players were in, I think it would be maybe a little bit different story. But I think we can get a lot of things accomplished being able to work remotely.”

While the Saints chose to not hold a formal virtual offseason — Payton told his players to focus on their families, and to show up at training camp in the best shape of their lives — the team has been scheduling teleconference calls, sometimes with guest speakers. NBA great Shaquille O’Neal was in on one such meeting.

So far, more than a dozen NFL teams have sent members of the coaching staff back to their facilities. But with state and local guidelines differing wildly in which businesses may reopen and when, it could take a while for everyone to get back on a level playing field.

It’s not clear just yet when the Saints will open their training camp. That’s likely going to happen at the NFL’s discretion (in accordance with local rulings), but dates are usually announced in mid-June. Last year, Saints rookies reported for work on July 18. Veteran players joined them a week later.

In the meantime, the Saints will continue to work from home and organize meetings as best as they can. With such an experienced roster to work with and a largely-unchanged coaching staff at the wheel, they should be able to resume work quickly once the time comes.

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