| | By Doug Brien
Special to ESPN.com
Editor's note: What is life in an NFL training camp like? Kicker Doug Brien takes you inside the camp of the New Orleans Saints with his weekday diary for ESPN.com.
Wednesday, July 26
THIBODAUX, La. -- Yesterday, a fan e-mailed me and asked what players like to do in their time off. Two things came to mind: pingpong and pizza. You have to realize we do not get much time off. The majority of our day is consumed by practice, getting ready for practice (treatment, taping, and dressing) and meetings. However, at every break I see some players at the ping-pong table in the lobby of our dorms. From what I understand, Sherrod Gideon (a sixth-round draft choice) is the man to beat, but Sammy Knight, Alex Molden, and Charlie Clemons are also pretty tough.
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| Brien |
After our evening meeting, while the rest of team is in offense and defense teams, the kickers always play some pingpong before we head up to our rooms. Our backup punter, Bill LaFleur, beats the rest of us consistently. Today, I finally beat Toby (Gowin), twice. Since I cannot manage to beat Bill, I accuse him being good at pingpong because he took Pingpong 101 at Nebraska. (Really, I am just jealous because he has two national championship rings.)
Every evening at 9:30 we have a snack delivered to our dormitory. The most popular snack is pizza; usually 20 to 30 pizzas get delivered each night. The delivery boy arrives at 9:30 and the pizzas are gone before 10. Some of the linemen take entire large pizzas up to their rooms for a late-night snack. Yesterday, Rob Kelly (he also posts a camp diary at www.robkelly.com) told me he loves pizza more than anything, but that he physically cannot eat another piece. Apparently, he has eaten pizza every night since camp started about 10 days ago.
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We have worked on two-minute situations over the past few days. Three times we were driving and needed a field goal to win. Not once did the offense get the ball near field-goal range. We will have to do better than that once the season begins. ” |
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This morning coach Haslett told us that by next week we will have installed the entire offense and that we will be reviewing and refining things for the remainder of camp. The offense has learned an entirely new offense and has struggled a bit with all of the new material. For example, we have worked on two-minute situations over the past few days. Three times we were driving and needed a field goal to win. Not once did the offense get the ball near field-goal range. We will have to do better than that once the season begins. Maybe more pizza would help.
Material from kicking.com.
Visit Doug Brien's web site at http://www.kicking.com
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New Orleans Saints
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