New Orleans Saints Executive Vice President/General Manager Mickey Loomis was the first guest on the Saints and Pelicans online radio show "The Black and Blue Report" Monday. Listen to the full segment above. Highlights from the interview with host Sean Kelley are below:
At this stage in your career, are you still as excited about camp starting?
"Absolutely, probably more so this year than I have been in quite a while based upon the events in the past couple of years, but look, I'm excited to have Sean Payton back in our building, first of all. He's such an important part of our organization and the success that we have had and I know everyone has enjoyed having him back this offseason and we certainly look forward to this upcoming training camp. We have a lot to prove here, we have a bad taste in our mouth over the way our season went a year ago, so we are looking to prove that was an anomaly and that we are a better team than that."
About Sean Payton being back:
"I think it's important, there's no question about it, but we are also kidding ourselves if we expect him to walk in the building and everything be different. All of us, myself included, our players, our assistant coaches, our entire building, we have to do our jobs better. It's not just all on him and not all his responsibility. We have to do a better job than we did a year ago if we are going to have a different result and so, yes, it is important to have him back but it is more important that all of us do a better job than we did a year ago."
A position group you will watch more than another other group:
"All of us, myself included, are anxious to see how this change in our scheme defensively is going to impact our team and look, I know we have a lot of good players on defense and I know we have a good coaching staff, so how quickly that comes together, the chemistry of that and how guys fit each of their roles, and how they determine their roles is going to be important. But it is not just going to be the first few days, that is going to exist all the way through camp and into the other part of the season, and how quickly that comes together is probably going to dictate how we play on defense early. And yet, Sean Payton talks a lot about our game being a complimentary game so, how our offense plays and how we run the ball, and the amount of turnovers that we have offensively is going to impact how well we play defensively and so we always have to keep that in mind."
Which players Saints fans should look out for in Training Camp:
"The most talked about position is our left tackle position, so I think the most interesting thing for fans to be able to watch how that develops, how that competition develops between Jason Smith, Charles Brown and Terron Armstead over the course of this early part of training camp and into training camp, so that's probably the position battle that is going to be the most interesting for all of us involved."
