Saints get good practice work with other teams

Aug 19, 2017 - 12:57 AM COSTA MESA, Calif. -- The New Orleans Saints have entered the most intense part of their preseason camp with extended work against the Los Angeles Chargers and the Houston Texans over a 10-day period.

They traveled to Los Angeles four days ahead of their second preseason game to get in two days of full practices and a walk-through Saturday before facing Los Angeles in a game Sunday night. After returning home they will have a similar practice routine with the Texans before facing them in their home preseason debut Aug. 26 in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.

Head coach Sean Payton said he thought the Saints were "crisper" in Friday's practice than they were in Thursday. On both days, the reduced heat and humidity of Southern California compared to Southeastern Louisiana was welcomed.

"(Chargers head coach) Anthony (Lynn) and I have worked together before and so you have two staffs that are clearly on the same page as to what our goals are and that's to improve our teams," Payton said after practice Friday. "You can do that with each other at home, but whenever you have the chance to expand or play or work with another team you see different personnel. You see different schemes and you see looks that you haven't been used to.

"I think from a football standpoint, just the competition versus another opponent (is valuable). From a climate standpoint, the training conditions are outstanding."

--New Orleans fired two team doctors after it was discovered that starting cornerback Delvin Breaux's leg injury was misdiagnosed. Breaux missed two weeks of training camp and the preseason opener because of what was believed to be a contusion, but when the injury didn't get better, further examination determined that Breaux had a fractured fibula. He underwent surgery Aug. 17 and is expected to miss at least six more weeks.

"You're always trying to give the best opinion possible," head coach Sean Payton said. "It's one of those positions with every team there's always that level of importance to come up with the right opinion. For years, those guys (Deryk Jones and Misty Suri) have done a great job. Yet, there's a point in which we just felt as an organization that change was going to be necessary for us. We will be in the process of going through different candidates and who we think (we should hire)."

--The Saints search for a long snapper continues to evolve with the evaluation of tight end John Phillips in that position. The team released last year's long snapper, Justin Drescher, in the offseason but brought him back after two newcomers -- Chase Dominguez and Thomas Gafford -- proved to be inadequate replacements early in training camp. Now Drescher and Phillips are competing.

"You're constantly looking at your roster and it's not often that you can have a dual position player like that, but when you can it's like gold because now you potentially have a tight end, (and) a guy that can long snap," Payton said of Phillips potentially becoming the long snapper. "I know it's not the norm and yet there's a lot of value in something like that."