Seeing off the Saints

Dan with Saints RB Pierre Thomas

Wednesday's practice is over, and with it ends the 2 day joint practices with the New Orleans Saints. Now, I know there is certainly a benefit for the visiting team to be nice to fans on the road, makes the team look good. But I have to say this - when it came to autographs/fan interaction, the Saints absolutely put the Patriots to shame. The Pats should be embarrassed that the other team was THAT MUCH better than them. I thought day one was great for Saints autographs, but today was ridiculous. After practice, as all but about 6 of the Pats players walked off the field without a glance to the stands, literally 80% of the Saints guys headed out to sign. There were so many I couldn't even keep up! I definitely needed an assistant for these 3 joint practices to colelct autographs. Unfortunately for the Banner, I couldn't completely capitalize on all the Saints players because the VIP area was absolutely SWAMPED...I just missed Reggie Bush! But I stood my ground and was still able to get a couple of pictures to finish off the Saints-Pats Joint Practices Adventure. And as you can see, they're not the best pics as there's random people in both of them, couldn't quite get them out of the way of the shot. Today brought a couple of good ones too with RB Pierre Thomas (who added a nice New Orleans style 'Who Dat??' to the back of the banner) and C Matt Tennant, a former BC boy so I had to get a pic. All in all, it was a great couple of days with the Saints in town and I hope in the future the Pats invite teams in for more joint practices, it was awesome to see another team! And who knows, maybe some summer I can take Dan the Banner on a little road trip to some other training camps.

Dan with Saints C (and BC boy) Matt Tennant