Saints seek secondary upgrade

• By SHELDON MICKLES
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: Jul 31, 2008 - Page: 1C - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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JACKSON, Miss. — New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton collected cornerbacks this offseason the way Jon Gruden, his close friend and counterpart with the Tampa Bay Bucs, collects quarterbacks.

Unlike Gruden, Payton had more than one reason for stacking cornerbacks onto his depth chart the way a lumberjack stacks firewood. In no particular order, they were:

• A porous pass defense. The Saints allowed 245.3 yards a game, which ranked them third-to-last in the NFL.
• Big plays and touchdowns. The defense gave up 54 passes of 20 yards or more and opposing quarterbacks fired off 32 TD passes.
• Insult and injury. After all that, 10-year veteran Mike McKenzie, their best cover corner, tore his right ACL in Week 16.

Considering each of those reasons contributed to their 7-9 season, Payton and the Saints signed unrestricted free agents Randall Gay and Aaron Glenn and took Tracy Porter in the second round of the draft. They also signed free agent Jerametrius Butler, although he didn’t report to training camp and retired.

Gay, Glenn and Porter joined returnees Jason David and Jason Craft in the mix at camp and McKenzie came off the physically-unable-to-perform list earlier this week to join the competition for roster and starting spots.

Gay, a former LSU standout, and David, who struggled in his first season with the Saints a year ago, opened training camp as the starters. But there is a lot of time for anyone and everyone to mount a challenge.

Which is why Gay, who played in two Super Bowls in four seasons with the New England Patriots, is so eager to fit in and learn the Saints’ system.

“All the players made it a real easy transition,” Gay said. “Everybody’s been nice and cooperative. They’re trying to help. They’re trying to make sure this team gets better. I don’t think they like what happened with the team last year, and they want to get better.

“I guess they know I’m going to push everybody to get better. They’re going to help me get better and we’re going to improve as a team.”

At least that’s the plan.

How it all shakes out is going to depend on how quickly McKenzie can rebound from his injury. He’s likely to start at left corner again if he can return to form in the final two weeks of training camp and perhaps just two exhibition games.

If McKenzie is in the lineup for the regular-season opener Sept. 7 against Tampa Bay, that leaves the other starting job and nickel spot to a large group that will include Gay, David, Porter and second-year pro Usama Young, who is having a solid camp so far.

“We’ve got a lot of great depth at cornerback from the young guys to the older guys,” David said, “so there’s going to be a lot of competition out there throughout this camp.”

While no one likes to see a teammate hurt, Gay said the absence of McKenzie, who may be limited to one practice a day for the next couple of weeks, gives more reps and valuable experience to others.

“When somebody goes down, you have got to be prepared to take over,” Gay said. “That’s why I’m still in the league right now. (Ex-Patriots cornerback) Ty Law got hurt and I had to be able to step in and get his reps and be able to perform.