Say It Ain't So, Lance: Please Re-Sign with the New Orleans Saints

On Monday's version of the "B.S. Report" on espn.com, Bill Simmons and Mike Lombardi discussed the weekend of Free Agency and offseason moves to this point. For those of you who may not know, Simmons (known as The Sports Guy) is an all-Boston sports fan. So naturally, he loves the Patriots, and ultimately only cares about them.

Almost needless to say, he was bummed about the Cassel deal, as seemingly every Patriot fan is. Even Lombardi did not really have the answer as to why the Pats only received a Second-Round pick.

Lombardi, interestingly enough, even mentioned that he wouldn't be surprised if Mike Vrabel did not make the Kansas City team this season.

So I digress. Back to the matter at hand, that is the thing that I found most interesting. The two discuss ad nauseam about Lance Moore and brought up several different locales for New Orleans' unofficial Most Improved Player a season ago. Unfortunately, none of those locations were New Orleans.

And on top of it, with Simmons being such a New England lover, New England was, in his opinion, the perfect place for Lance. This thought pretty much scares the bejesus out of me. I don't want to lose Lance at all, but especially to the Patriots, one of the teams I hate the most in the entire NFL.

I guess I was naive to think that nobody else even knew who Lance Moore was. I thought he was the Saints little secret. Apparently not.

The only possible saving grace is that Moore is a Restricted Free Agent, meaning the Saints have the option to match any teams offer (plus the Saints have offered him a one-year tender).

If Moore were an Unrestricted Free Agent it sounds as if he may have been the first Free Agent off the board at the Wide Receiver position.

In my recent article about the Saints biggest Free Agency needs, I barely mentioned Moore because I didn't see this as being an issue. I simply assumed he would be re-signed. But the longer he and the Saints go without a deal, the more scary it becomes.

Comparatively, Moore is much more important to the Saints success than fellow Free Agent Receiver Devery Henderson, although in a perfect world, both would be re-signed.

Moore is a very good possession receiver who catches pretty much everything thrown his way. Henderson is a deep-threat who does not catch everything thrown his way. You tell me who is more important.

Supposedly the Saints want to bring in Darren Sharper at Safety, which I wouldn't mind if the guy wasn't on his last legs in this league. Why not use the 14th pick in the upcoming draft on a slash guy in Malcolm Jenkins, who can play both corner and safety, assuming he is available of course.

Otherwise trade down and draft your safety in the Third or Fourth Round, with an additional pick.

The reason I bring that up is because signing Sharper, or any veteran, eats at the Salary Cap, which makes it that much more difficult to re-sign Moore, whereas drafting a safety is essentially free, since there is a Rookie Salary pool teams are allowed to work under, which is not part of the Salary Cap.

It seems like common sense to me. Let's hope the Saints heed my advice.