Carl Nicks “Disheartened” By Saints Unwillingness To Negotiate During The Season

The New Orleans Saints are one the team’s that have a number of key free agents to address in the coming weeks.

Saints G Carl Nicks is apparently “disheartened” by the team’s unwillingness to negotiate a new deal before the offseason.

“They never talked to me at all about it really, which I thought was kind of weird,” Nicks said, via the New Orleans Times-Picayune. “I talked to (GM Mickey Loomis) the last day before exit meetings, and he said they were going to do their best to try to keep me. So that’s the gist of contract talks.”

New Orleans has yet to lockup QB Drew Brees which is most likely the reason that they’ve yet to address Nicks’ contract. As soon as Brees is under contract, they’ll have a better idea of how much cap room they have left to address players like Nicks, WR Marques Colston, and CB Tracy Porter. Add in the fact that they’ve already locked up G Jari Evans and it’s hard to see how they can keep both players when they’ll command such large contracts.

Still, Nicks is practical about the situation despite the fact that he would like to return to New Orleans.

“I hope so,” he said, when asked if he thought the Saints are interested in keeping him. “Do I sincerely believe it? Uh … they’ve still got to do Drew Brees’ deal. And I think Marques is up and Tracy is up. I just don’t see it, man, so I don’t know. I would love to stay, but who knows.”

“I would love to stay, but it’s also a good feeling to be wanted. So hopefully a lot of teams want me, but I would love to stay,” said Nicks.

There will be plenty of teams interested in you Carl Nicks. You don’t have to worry about that.