Yardbarker: Buck Ortega

Transcript City and CSC is the Mayor

Wed, 16 Sep 2009 15:51:56 -0500

Sean Payton Press Conference Transcript From the New Orleans Saints official website Opening Statement: PAYTON: "A couple of notes from yesterday: we waived Buck Ortega and signed Courtney Robyin his place and then Matt Simon was released off the practice squad and we signed Tyler Lorenzen, a tight end, to the practice squad. Today's notes, injury-wise: Jammal Brown (hip) did not participate; Darnell Dinkins (foot) did not practice; Jerm...

Saints Sign TE Buck Ortega

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 21:05:20 -0500

NOLA.com reports that the team has inked TE Buck Ortega: The Saints waived tight end Buck Ortega. Ortega first joined the Saints as a member of the practice squad late in the 2007 season. The 6-4, 250-pound tight end split the 2008 campaign between the practice squad and the active roster, and played in 12 games [...]

Saints Waive TE Buck Ortega

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 16:57:03 -0500

Tthe Saints waived tight end Buck Ortega. Ortega first joined the Saints as a member of the practice squad late in the 2007 season. The 6-4,...

New Orleans Saints re-sign kick returner/wide receiver Courtney Roby; waive TE Buck Ortega

Tue, 15 Sep 2009 14:36:57 -0500

Saints Nation: New Orleans Saints Final 53 man roster - incomplete

Sat, 05 Sep 2009 17:06:00 -0500

As of RIGHT NOW, these are the 50 players the Saints have retained:QB (2) Drew Brees, Mark BrunellHB (4) Pierre Thomas, Reggie Bush, Mike Bell, Lynell HamiltonFB (1) Heath EvansWR (5) Marques Colston, Lance Moore, Devery Henderson, Robert Meachem, Rod HarperTE (3) Jeremy Shockey, Buck Ortega, Darnell DinkinsT (4) Jammal Brown, Jon Stinchcomb, Jermon Bushrod, Zach StriefG (3) Jahri Evans, Carl Nicks, Jamar NesbitC (2) Jonathan Goodwin, Nick LeckeyE (3) Anthony Hargrove, Bobby McCray, Jeff Char...

Saints Nation's 53 Man Roster Prediction

Mon, 31 Aug 2009 09:33:00 -0500

Back on April 28th I took a stab at what the Saints' 53 man roster would look like (CLICK HERE) and the one I've compiled today looks a good bit different. As we close in on the deadline for cuts of September 5th the Saints will have some very difficult decisions to make. Here is what I believe will be the most likely 53 man New Orleans Saints roster as of today:QB: (3) Drew Brees, Mark Brunell, Joey HarringtonHB: (4) Pierre Thomas, Reggie Bush, Mike Bell, Lynell HamiltonFB: (1) Heath...

Jeremy Shockey Doesn't Play Well With Others

Fri, 21 Aug 2009 12:45:16 -0500

The Saints and Texans, bitter rivals from centuries past, got into a little intersquad donnybrook yesterday and America's second-most beloved tight-end was somewhere in the middle of it. Shocking, right? (Get it? 'Cause that's his name.) Are we being fair to Jeremy Shockey? Of course not. Houston's DeMeco Ryans was at least equally to blame (if not more so) for the altercation that began with a simple pass route, a grab of the jersey, a forearm to the head and all kinds of sho...

Former Cardinals RB Edgerrin James To The Saints???

Tue, 12 May 2009 10:19:59 -0500

p style=text-align: center;img class=size-full wp-image-7812 alignnone title=james2 src=http://www.mkrob.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/james2.jpg alt=james2 width=438 height=296/p p style=text-align: left;strongFormer Cardinals running back Edgerrin James is still looking for a home and I think the Saints would be a great home for him./strong/p p style=text-align: left;strongThe Saints already have two of EJ’s former Miami Hurricanes teammates tight end Jeremy Shockey and linebacker Dan Morg...

Saints Release QB Joey Harrington, DE Josh Savage

Wed, 08 Oct 2008 13:07:47 -0500

The Saints waived defensive end Josh Savage and quarterback Joey Harrington, and they signed defensive tackle Remi Ayodele and tight end Buck Ortega...

Saints Release QB Joey Harrington, DE Josh Savage

Tue, 07 Oct 2008 19:04:46 -0500

The Saints waived defensive end Josh Savage and quarterback Joey Harrington, and they signed defensive tackle Remi Ayodele and tight end Buck Ortega...

Practice Squad Already Ready to go For the Saints?

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 11:39:04 -0500

Rumor has it that the Saints have already cleared some players through waivers and have loose agreements with them for the Monday creation of the 8 man practice squad. Those players are Tyler Palko, Buck Ortega, Skyler Green, Lynell Hamilton, Orien Harris and Andy Alleman. Alleman was a surprise cut after being a 3rd round draft pick. Another surprised cut, Taylor Mehlhaff, is a hopeful for Saints fans if he clears waivers. Although there is no definitive word that the Saints want him back. Word close to JoLonn Dunbar, UDFA LB out of BC, is that Joey has been very happy with the Saints and wants to play for them. That same source says that the Colts and Redskins have expressed interest in him. Dunbar looked very promising in the pre-season games and was thought to have a chance to make the 53 man roster. If Dunbar was signed to the Saints PS, there would be no room for Mehlhaff.

Saints Make Cuts to Get the Roster to 53

Sat, 30 Aug 2008 16:53:55 -0500

The Saints today made a number of roster moves to get down to the NFL manidated 53 players.? The team released former third-round guard Andy Alleman, who was a draft pick last season.? The team also placed CB Greg Fassitt (knee) on injured reserve and waived Tim Duckworth, LB Jo-Lonn Dunbar, WR Skyler Green, RB Lynell Hamilton, DT Orien Harris, LB William Kershaw, K Taylor Mehlhaff, TE Buck Ortega, QB Tyler Palko, DE Josh Savage, FB Olaniyi Sobomehein and WR Joe West.

Saints 7/28 Morning Practice Notes

Mon, 28 Jul 2008 19:58:56 -0500

These notes were taken by James Blake and Jean-Paul Bergeaux while personally attending the Saints Training Camp practices. They are raw scribbles and are not meant to be grammatically correct. They may not be perfectly correct and sometimes may not even make sense to the "casual Saints fan". With that disclaimer, here we go! _______________________________________________________ Some notes as the practice started. Henderson, McKenzie, Porter, Bullocks and Blythe were all in shorts on the sidelines as the players warmed up. Deuce did what I think is his normal trainer stretching on the sidelines to warm up. *First drill was punt returns with Coach O working the DL on one side and OL and QBs doing snap practice on the other end. Brees was practicing with Goodwin, Brunell with Lehr and Palko with Rob Hunt. Punt returners were Moore, Green, and Bush with Devery hanging out with them but not dressed, so just listening. As the players were jogging around, you could hear a coach yelling "Come on David Roach! You ready to be a gunner today?!?!" No real action on the punts. No lines, just punts with all making a catch. *Next was a red zone walk through at half speed. 1st team was Brees throwing to Cambell and Shockey on screen passes. Then a dump off to Reggie. Not a lot of real action, seem to be just getting the play moves right. Of note was that Meachem, Patten and Colston were lining up in the first team for three wide receiver sets with Colston being the slot receiver. Billy Miller was on the 1st team as the TE as well. Shockey seemed to be talking to the coaches around him a lot. Asking a lot of questions. 1st team defense was lead by Brian Young (returning) and Hollis Thomas at DT and Mitchell at MLB. Vilma was running with the second team. One thing that I thought was interesting was that you could see Drew going through his progressions. There were no misses or dropped passes except a lazy effort on a low pass by Patten. *Team stretching directed by coaches. Porter and Henderson did not stretch, Bullocks, Blythe and MM did stretch. *Sleds for O and pick drills for D. *O was running gauntlet (for RB/FB) while D was doing pass catching for CBs and angle practice for S. *Next was "jamming off the line" practice for WR and CBs. Meachem couldn't beat Gay off the line. A coach started yelling at him as he passed him and Meachem said something to him. Coach responded with "Don't slip then!" Meachem got lined up against Gay again and beat him the second time to the praise of the same coach. Arrington Juked Jason David on the line. *WR Pivot catches. In this drill, they had 3 orange spots for the WR to run up to, stop, turn and catch as they came out of the break. All caught the passes well, but Colston who had two drops in a row and was pretty mad about it. Kicking the final ball off the field slightly. The coach kept yelling "Run THROUGH it! Accelerate!" The only WR that seemed to do it right was Patten. *QBs throwing shoulder catches with another WR trailing behind for distractions. *Normal passing route throw from QBs while D-line and O-line were practicing at the end zones. All of the DL were running through four dummies lined up and then charging a coach who threw the ball over their heads. The D-lineman were extending to tip or intercept the ball. All seemed to do well, but seemed to be very much an easy drill, setup in the DL favor to look good. Only thing of note on the QB/WR was Carlos Robinson getting reamed for catching a ball into his body. "Catch with your hands!" was heard. *Next was some pass drills w/ QBs. Four different passers (coach as 4th) throw passes to four different patterns. Shibby and I were a little concerned for a minute while Colston seemed to be paying attention to his calf in between drills. Then a trainer came up and cut a sleeve off of his leg (longer knee sleeve?) and then he seemed fine with no concerns to worry about. Also right as the drill was starting, David Patten wandered away from the group with a very mad look on his face, and limping with his left leg. He walked around for a while and returned to the group with no ill effects that we could tell. *Next was one of the BEST drills we saw! One on one WR against CBs with QBs throwing to them. This is a very difficult drill for CBs where time is not an issue and they have no help from anyone over the top. It made for some interesting competitions. Wale Dada was covering Colston on the first one and made a NICE play on the ball preventing the pass. Usama Young was on David Patten, who won by catching a good ball. Greg Fassitt was beat by Lance Moore. Adrian Arrington BURNED Aaron Glenn on a double move and the ball was over thrown. Arrington laid out for the ball and caught it, maintaining control as he hit the ground. It was probably the highlight catch for a WR all day. Cheers erupted and people were encouraging both Glenn and Arrington after the play. Jason Craft couldn't prevent a good pass to Robert Meachem. Skyler Green juked Jason David on a comeback pass. Reggie turned and blazed to a good catch over Usama Young. Fassitt was beat on a comeback by Copper similar to Green's over David. Colston did the same comeback over Aaron Glenn. Shockey had a nice slant catch to beat Jason Craft. Patten beat Wale Dada. Jason David had BLANKET coverage on Lance Moore, but a pinpoint pass by Drew got in anyway. Arrington tried to blaze past Young, but Young stuck with him well, tipped the ball and then grabbed an INT. The INT might have been reviewable in a game, as the ball did hit the ground while in Young's hand, but he seemed to have control of it. It was a BEAUTIFUL play by Young and drew a ton of cheers and sounds from the crowd. Shockey beat Dada. Meachem had a nice cut inside to beat Jason David. Carlos Robinson couldn't shake Young, Young was in his face and at the last minute, tipped the ball away with a hand in Robinson's face. Reggie beat Jason David. Colston beat Dada only because of his size domination over Dada. Shockey caught a back shoulder pass that was perfect from Drew over Jason Craft. *Punt Return drills were next. They started from short yardage (2 yard line) where it would be difficult for the punt team to defend. Reggie miss judged the first punt, but recovered and caught it. Reggie couldn't escape Copper and Young (no blockers at all) and they said something and laughed together. Moore also miss judged the punt next, but recovered and caught it. Skyler Green was perfect on his punt return, but again no one was able to run very far because the gunners were usually right there when they caught the punt. (Again, no one had any blockers.) Interestingly Tuff Harris returned a punt next, which I had not heard or seen earlier. We were thinking that it was just because Devery Henderson was sitting out. Reggie was perfect on next punt and then Moore did something entertaining on the next one, he tried to use the coaches as interference, running through a group standing together. He didn't escape completely, but it was funny. Skyler Green fielded the next punt perfectly, but it was a VERY good angled punt by I believe Weatherford. Green caught it with one foot barely out of bounds. Reggie finally broke one even without blockers as he out ran Copper and a defensive player that I didn't catch and broke up the sidelines. *Goal line punts were next. Mostly the returner had to get out of the way as the ball was landing at the 2 to 5 yard line and the gunners were trying to down it before it went over the goal line. Weatherford kicked a perfect kick, but Meachem missed the ball as it rolled into the end zone. Coaches started screaming at Meachem. Prather had a perfect backward spinning punt that died at the 1 yard line and was caught by Arrington to down it inside the 2 yard line. Weatherford then topped that with a PERFECT sideline punt that would have gone out of bounds and been spotted at about the 2 yard line. Prather kicked a tough one to get and Jason David made a half hearted effort, but might have been able to get it if he had put more effort in it. Tuff Harris ran full speed from the other side gunner spot and almost got to the ball to down it before it bounded into the end zone. Weatherford then kicked a nice punt inside the 5 and Aaron Glenn miss-judged the ball and it got by him to roll into the end zone instead of getting downed. Reggie fielded a ball at the 5 yard line, I think because he was tired of letting the ball go by him. J They then flipped around and did a new punt drill. This one was a "max protect" line for the punter where there were no gunners, a full rush and the outside protectors became gunners for the punt return, with blockers trying to stop them. This produced more chances for the PR to get into the open field, as there were only 2 tacklers against 4 blockers and a punt returner. The line didn't really make an effort. Moore, Green, and Reggie all had good returns with Reggie out running them sometimes, but mostly blockers allowing the PR to get out. *Break Tuff Harris seemed to be wincing in pain as he limped, but then kept playing and remained in the practice at full speed. *They did a Red Zone walk through again, not at full speed and little contact. Several plays practiced, but nothing noteworthy except a dropped pass by Meachem from Brunell (2nd team). *Full speed Red Zone practice for all three groups. -Brees started the first team. off by hitting Colston for a twisting "Colston-like" body contorting pass. The DB came up (didn't see who it was) to try to make a play, which is why Colston did the twisting. The DB missed and fell down as Colston caught the ball, kept upright and took off open and free. GREAT catch (of course). NOTE: This is not the play at this link. That play was from the beginning of the second 1st string run (I note it later) http://www.coxsportstv.com/WebSite/PopupFlashVideo.aspx?VideoId=482 Something of note was that Mark Simoneau was running the 1st team D as MLB. Brees hit Billy Miller. Gay made a NICE play on the ball to knock it away from Colston. Colston had done his normal goal line catch domination because of his size, but Gay had none of it as he knocked the ball out before Colston came down with both feet. Run up the middle by Deuce. Brees was getting a lot of pressure from Charles Grant. Brees threw a side arm AROUND Grant as he came in right to Shockey for a short gain. Good instincts by Brees and good short route and catch by Shockey. With pressure on Brees, Copper wasn't able to pull in a bad throw over the middle. There was some debate over whether the pass was to Shockey or Copper, but the majority voted it was Copper. J It's worth noting that the D-line was getting good pressure on all three QBs with all three D-lines and O-lines playing. -2nd team came on with Brunell throwing a bad pass to Lance Moore in the right flats area. The ball went almost right to Usama Young, who made the INT. Again the D-line had a lot of pressure on Brunell. (For some reason I missed who was running MLB with the second team. Since Mitchell was running 3rd team, I assume it was Vilma? Anyone see this?) Yet again the D-line is dominating. Brunell couldn't find a receiver and got flushed out to the left side for what would have been a short rushing gain. Arrington dropped a TOUGH catch from Brunell over Greg Fassitt. It wasn't good coverage and wasn't a bad drop by Arrington, yet it was not a completion. Probably in an effort to relieve the pressure by the D, they called a reverse. Meachem had good speed on the reverse and would have gotten free for a good gain. We didn't notice it, but we think that Arrington either sold the pass or had a good block on Fassitt, as he was not even near the side that Meachem came on (which was the left side where Arrington had been lined up). Since they were only 10 yards from the end zone (this was almost all red zone play), Arrington must have had a good block at some point to pull it off. Brunell followed it up with a good throw to Adrian Arrington, who made the catch. Looked like a normal successful play. Arrington switched to the right side and had a WR in the slot. A pick/screen play got Arrington a short catch in traffic. Good catch and showed good concentration. -Palko came in with the 3rd string. (As noted before Mitchell was running the MLB with 3rd string D) Palko completed a screen to Lance Moore. Outside run by Lynnell Hamilton was a good run. Showed some speed and running ability. Palko completed short pass to Buck Ortega, and Ortega got a few yards after stumbling with no defensive player around him. They started with a stack of two WRs in the slot position with no WR on the outside. After the WR cleared out on patterns, Palko completed a quick pass to RB Olanyi Sobomehin coming up behind where the WR stack had been. Screen pass to Barclay which Barclay turned into a nice run. Palko finished off his chance with a bad pass