It is entirely possible I may actually watch a little of the Hall of Fame Game — beyond the first quarter — just to see Tyler Palko on the field in a New Orleans Saints uniform.
The former West Allegheny High School and Pitt star quarterback will play some time in the second half when the New Orleans Saints play the Pittsburgh Steelers in the Pro Football Hall of Fame Game in Canton, Ohio.
Drew Brees will start for the Saints and play a series or two. Backup QB Jamie Martin will finish the first half. In the second half, Palko and Jason Fife, who are battling for the No. 3 job, will split time.
“It’s accurate to say that those live snaps you receive at quarterback over the period of four or five games are very important,” Saints coach Sean Payton said.
Last year when the Saints won the NFC South Division and advanced to the NFC Championship Game, they kept only two quarterbacks most of the year (Brees, a first-team All-Pro last year, and Martin, a journeyman who’s only started eight games in his 12-year pro career.
New Orleans Coach Sean Payton seems to really want Palko to succeed.
There are some other youngsters to watch: second-year receiver Lance Moore could end up being the punt/kick returner; Rutgers free-agent cornerback Joe Porter has impressed while Payton mentioned Pitt quarterback Tyler Palko, another undrafted rookie.
Payton’s eyes lit up when he spoke of Palko’s passing background at Pitt, which is interesting because should the Saints lose Brees, their season figures to go downhill fast. Jamie Martin is the backup, but he isn’t physically imposing.
At the very least, Payton seems to believe Palko could become a solid back-up. Palko performed well in minicamps, but has made some mistakes in training camp. Big shock, it came from trying to do too much.
Often, he has struggled to decide where to throw before being forced to scramble out of the pocket. On one such occasion, as he rolled frantically to his right, the lefty attempted to flip a short backhanded pass about 10-yards down field, then watched it get intercepted and returned to the end zone.
“He’s had a lot thrown at him. … He’s probably pushed it a little bit to try to make plays,” Payton said after a recent practice. “He’s handled the installation well, but like any young quarterback, there is a lot going on in their minds and it’s moving pretty quickly. You just hope each practice he gets better.”
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Payton did not seem terribly disturbed by Palko’s botched, desperate, backhanded pass, considering that it happened early in training camp. But Palko will need to avoid making the same mistakes twice.
“That indiscriminate decision where you are trying to force something can be common with young quarterbacks – and you have to eliminate them,” Payton said.
There are some habits that take a while to shake.
I’m sure tomorrow we can expect a story or two about Palko coming to play the team he grew up watching. The usual cliches are expected to be overused.
tyler did those kind of backhanded tosses all the time at pitt, why would he stop now?
I looked at the polls and got PSU as 24 and 25 in the last poll. In the *preseason* poll for last year i see them as 19…
They also said “The Mountaineers finished last season No. 7 in the coaches poll and No. 5 in the Associated Press poll.” Once again, that was preseason….at the end they were 10 in both polls…
…more laziness by the PG staff? Can’t get your polls right? I’m sure what happened is they went to the espn site and clicked on “2006” under the rankings…what they didn’t realize is the preseason poll for 2006 came up. And these guys get paid to do this?
ND isn’t ranked at all, I’m sure they’re going to have a fit about this. And that *horrible* rutgers team is ranked ahead of that “amazing” psu team…how can that be!
3 big 11 teams in the top ten…we’re never going to hear the end of it…luckily for them *NONE* of them play a single ranked team in the non-conference. They can all just play each other and keep telling us how good they are. I guess we’ll have to wait til bowl season for them to lose all their bowl games (again) before we can see how good they really are.
At least LSU scheduled Vtech…too bad florida scheduled no one. Not to say the top of the big east loaded up the non-con, but at least they win their bowl games.
It ain’t paranoia when everyone is out to get you.
And then this: “I think they were agitated into doing some things. It wasn’t as bad as [the media] and a lot of people made it out to be.”
Gee, the police thought so. Normal people who think home invasion and assault are crimes thought so. And we’d all know for sure before the season started without some good ‘ol fashioned delay tactics.
And good job of blaming the victims – 1 guy agitated 1 player – so lets get a gang and go kick everyone’s ass and steal their shit because 1 guy got agitated. That’s fucking pathetic. Why isn’t there an uproar about this?
R Kelly approves of that shithole’s handling of the situation.
Since the beginning of August there have already been 4.5 articles on PSU, either “neutral” or talking up how great they are. None talking shit on them.
This month there have been 1, yes 1, article on Pitt – talking about suspending Fields.
We’re a fucking minority in our own city. I wouldn’t be suprised if they fired Zeise altogether so they don’t have to print anything about Pitt anymore. Except the occasional hatchet job by an intern or “columnist” (read: illiterate hack).
“JACKSON, MISS. Yeah, you’ve heard it a million times, one of the oldest clichés: He’s the first guy on the practice field every morning, and the last one to leave every night.
But in the case of Saints rookie quarterback Tyler Palko, it’s true. He is the one guy who has been making the coaching assistants put in the most overtime throughout the first week of training camp.”
Now here’s a question: If Palko went to ND and Quinn went to Pitt, who gets drafted #22 last spring?
What am I suggesting? Civil disobedience, mostly. Drop your PG subscription and tell their main editors why (don’t bother with the sports editor, he’s a Nit). Go to the Fanfest. Blue/Gold games. But don’t be a mindless consumer. Show up for worthy games, yes, but not the garbage games. But don’t just not show up … contact the administration and tell them why you aren’t. That Grambling is a disgrace. Tell them why you hated dinocat but despise mulletdog even more (not as important, but a very symbolic lack of respect). That Wednesday games are MAC crap and unworthy of a 9 time national champion. Beyond that, show pride. Wear more Pitt stuff than Stiller or Penguin stuff (what did those private businesses ever do for you that you’d give them free advertising?). Put Pitt stickers in your car windows (like seemingly every VT fan in this area must do). When a Nit a-hole says something insulting about Pitt (“they suck,” “Oakland’s a ghetto,” etc.), don’t blithely accept it. Throw the crap like what happened with the unpunished assaults this offseason back in their face. That Pitt cured polio and is leading the way to curing cancer, while PSU has contributed little to society besides grass seed and Peacy Paterno ice cream. Exaggeration? No doubt. But there are two ways to fight Hitler — like France did, or like the British and Americans did.
“Giving it a rest” has put us in the predicament we’re in today. Near the bottom of a bad conference with a clueless commissioner that cares only about the tiny hoops schools, scheduling I-AA schools EVERY FRIGGIN YEAR, playing games during the middle of the week, renting a dump of a pro stadium nearly an hour from campus that is selling off all of its tailgating parking year by year.
This would be much easier if the football team would finally WIN a little bit, of course…
I won’t attend crap football games – our administration should be made to pay for what they’ve allowed to happen. Now, when we get good again, I’ll pony up for tickets just like I do for bball. But it looks like only every other year – good job letting the b’east commissioners screw us in the ass, scheduling LU and WVU away the same years.
LET’S DO IT!!!
