Money does talk...

...and the Saints are going to have to dole out a lot of it in the next year or so.

Colston's going to likely need an extension this year, expecting him to play for the minimum again is pretty unrealistic.

Will Smith needs a deal -- and if we lose him, you don't wanna know what we'd have to pay for a new DE.

Assuming Vilma is what we expect, he'll need a deal.

Evans will need another deal soon.

Those are four guys that are pretty quality players, and we'll need a lot of this room for. I honestly think we made a run at Samuel, and he chose to go to the higher profile team. Briggs, I think we cooled on after getting Vilma. I sincerely hope we can get an edge rusher, since it looks like we lost LaBoy to the Brownies.

If we can land Shockey or Sheppard, I think this offseason will have been a success...I know a lot of guys don't like Shockey's attitude, but I think a weapon like that would bring our offense to a higher and more consistant level. Right now, we have a good offense...with him, we could have one on par with the very, very best.

I think this front office is trying its best...we've paid out a lot of money in the past few years to our own guys, so I don't think it's "Tom Benson is handcuffing Loomis"...