This is the time of year that most teams love: players coming and going like a whirlwind, each one having the potential to make a team better than it was a year before. There are lot of things that go into making a good team, and chief among them is having the right people in the right situations. But far too often, fans will seek to denigrate some of these players and paint them with broad strokes, claiming that they are unremarkable or unimportant.

XMike Wallace, Staff Saints Writer

The Saints, like all teams, have the capacity to carry 90 players at this point in the offseason, and announced on Thursday that they signed DT Isakko Aaitui to a two year deal. Most fans simply looked at the name, shrugged and went on about their business. Some were encouraging and supportive, but there were some who called the signing trivial, and dismissed the young man immediately as being a small, inconsequential fish in a large pond of “Old Gold and Black”. The following is my response to the idea that his signing was trivial, and that he had a small chance of making the roster:

1 ) I’m not disputing the fact that Aaitui has a small chance of making the team. 90 ===> 53. What I am disputing is this notion of the signing being ‘trivial’. Such a nasty word, loaded with a lot of baggage. Easier way to call someone simple or worthless I suppose.

2 ) Think of it this way: Isaako has been preparing his entire life to become a member of a professional football team. He has been around the league a bit, yes, but really how often has he had an actual shot at cracking a roster? This signing is by no means ‘trivial’ for him, nor is it commonplace, or simple, or any of the other myriad terms used to define and simplify the notion that it means little to nothing. Trivial means something else though, a meaning that most are not aware of: Specific.

3 ) This signing was a specific one to fill a specific need. Players aren’t brought in to motivate guys, or just stand around and eat up space, especially not since Sean Payton came to town. Just because a guy gets drafted doesn’t guarantee him a spot on this team, nor does being signed last and filling up the roster as the 90th man make anyone commonplace.

4 ) Put yourself in his shoes and think about what it means to him before you go assigning notions of simplicity and unimportance to the event. Learn to look beyond the facemask to the man wearing the helmet, one who has thoughts, ideas, dreams and feelings just as you do. I wish ill on no one, and I say this to simply drive home the point: the chances of you getting hit by a car on the way to work today are trivial too, but the outcome of that event is not.

5 ) Isaako Aaitui may not be someone we knew about last week, but he is a Saint now, and that means that as a Saints fan, he gets my support. It should be the same for everyone.

Now on the surface, I know that it appears I am championing the cause of Aaitui specifically. I am not. While I am citing him as an example, I am referring to all of the “unheralded” players that have been signed across the league in the last few weeks or so. People did not know who Pierre Thomas, Lance Moore, Jed Collins, Isa Abdul Quddus, Brian De La Puente or Garrett Hartley were either. People like Chip Vaughn and Stanley Arnoux got drafted but never played a significant part in the Saints success. For all the hits of the 2006 draft, there were some misses too. Josh Lay, Mike Hass and Rob Ninkovich went on to greener pastures while Jahri Evans, Marques Colston and Roman Harper were given Super Bowl rings three seasons later.

I say these things to illustrate a point, that no one knows who will pan out and who will make the team, or who will flame out and come crashing back to the Earth, having flown too close to the sun despite being told by Daedalus that the wings were never meant for that. The wings that gave him hope had a limitation, don’t fly too close to the sun, or the wax will melt. Don’t fly too close to the Sea, of the foam will soak the wings. You have to stay at a certain elevation, and work within certain boundaries to set yourself free of the tower.

There are 90 men on the New Orleans Saints roster today, there will be 53 by the time they play the Falcons in September. The big question is, how many of them will share the fate of Icarus, and how many will fly straight and far, bound to the dreams of freedom and hope that come with such strict instructions. I don’t and can’t know that, and nor does anyone else out there, fan, analyst, player, agent or coach. Right now I just want to see these guys succeed, and hold out hope that they will have a chance to see what lies past the horizon.

Picture Credit: Pic courtesy of footballnewsnow.com

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