NEW ORLEANS -- Yeah, it's late and nobody is reading this since the American work force has gone home for the day.
But I'll give you a few items from the Saints' locker room:
. The Visanthe Shiancoe-Darren Sharper cat-n-mouse routine continued today. Wednesday, Shiancoe predicted he'd catch 10 touchdowns on Sharper in Sunday's game. I believe that would be some kind of post-season record. Thursday, Sharper was asked to respond. The former Viking, who used to have a locker next to Shiancoe's at Winter Park, laughed. "Ten touchdowns? On me?" he said. "That’s kind of a Shiancoe quote, living in a fairytale land. Ten touchdowns? Is that possible? I don’t think so."
. I found it interesting that coach Sean Payton said the toe injury that had been troubling tight end Jeremy Shockey has healed. Shockey is on the injury report as having not practiced Wednesday or Thursday. But it's what Payton described as a knee "bruise" suffered when Shockey limped into the end zone and caught that touchdown pass against the Cardinals. Payton said Shockey hurt it after he got to the end zone. I have a hard time believing that Shockey's toe isn't bothering him, based on how bad he looked running into the end zone. That's one of the dangers of playing with an injury. Players often injury another body part while overcompensating for an injury. Payton said he'd have no problem playing Shockey in the game even if he missed practice again on Friday.
. It doesn't appear that WR Robert Meacham's ankle injury is that serious. He was limited in practice today. Sharper also was limited because of a knee. That's just a precaution Payton often takes with the 34-year-old Sharper.
. C Jonathan Goodwin was on the injury report with a knee injury, but practiced in full. The same for DE Bobby McCray. Goodwin needs to be at full strength for the Saints to have a chance to control the Williams Wall.
. I heard about the ice storm. It was 76 and sunny today. Yes, I got the, "What's the weather like in Minneapolis question." You'd think that question would get old after a few centuries.
. I don't know if this has been posted elsewhere yet, but our panel of six so-called experts (experts are always "so-called" when it comes to sports. I don't have a problem with that since there are no experts when it comes to predicting NFL games. We're all just public guesstimators).