The New Orleans Saints were willing to draft Carl Nicks when his off-the-field problems left other teams wary.
Now an emerging star at left guard, Nicks decided that his allegiance should remain with the team that gave him his first shot in the NFL, at least for one more season.
Nicks, who has thrived in a starting role for most of his first three pro seasons, arrived at Saints headquarters on Monday, four days into training camp, and signed a restricted free agent tender worth about $2.61 million for this season.
"They took a chance,"
Nicks recalled in reference to his 2008 arrest for failing to leave the scene of a party police broke up while he was at Nebraska. "I had a lot of questions coming out of college and Payton drafted me, Mickey drafted me, so my loyalty stands with these guys first and foremost."
Nicks' signing was on of a couple transactions the Saints made, including the re-signing of free agent reserve tackle Zach Strief and the signing of free-agent linebacker Clint Ingram, who was with the Saints in 2010 but never played because of his slow recovery from microfracture surgery on his left knee.
The 6-foot-5, 343-pound Nicks, whose ability on the field was highly rated but who fell to the fifth-round of the 2008 draft because of his arrest, started 13 games as a rookie and has remained the starting left guard ever since.
Nicks did not report when training camp opened last week because he wanted to see if he'd receive a better offer from another club, which the Saints then would have been forced to match in order to retain him. He has since decided the chances of such an offer coming were slim because the tender offer the Saints made to him was high enough to require any other any team that signed him to compensate New Orleans with a first-round draft pick.
"At the end of the day, I wanted to come back anyway. I know the system. I got (quarterback) Drew (Brees), a great offensive line, great bunch of guys,"
Nicks said. "I wanted to prove my worth and maybe next year we can talk long-term."
