New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees

Shortly after landing midday at Louis Armstrong International Airport, Goodell visited with players and coaches at the team's training camp hotel and later with owner Tom Benson and General Manager Mickey Loomis.

"I just congratulated them on, not only a great season, but how they did it,'' Goodell said. "The relationship between them and this community is very special.

"I'm not surprised because I think this team has always had a special Jonathan Vilma relationship with the community, and I think they played a very valuable role, as well as the NFL, in helping them rebuild the Superdome which is a symbol of the tragedy that took place here.''

Though Goodell must remain bipartisan in his role as NFL czar, he has never disguised his affection for the Big Easy. He referred to the night of Sept. 25, 2006, and what it meant to him when the Saints played their first home game post-Hurricane Katrina against the Atlanta Falcons on national television.

"That was one of the highlights of my career in the NFL,'' Goodell said. "That was a great evening for this community and NFL in general. I'm not surprised by this community. It keeps coming back and meets every challenge. It shows the world in why it's such a great place to be.''

During his 10-minute visit with the players at the Airport Hilton, Darren Sharper Goodell fielded several questions about the current labor issues facing the league.

"He couldn't get into negotiation type things in that kind of meeting,'' Saints linebacker Scott Shanle said. "A couple of guys voiced their concerns and basically all he could say was 'I hear you' because nothing can be resolved right now.''

Goodell had more to say with reporters about the ongoing efforts of club owners and the NFL Players Association to get a new collective bargaining agreement and avoid a work stoppage in 2011.

"I don't think there is a lot of place for rhetoric,'' Goodell said. "I think the job is to get to the negotiating table and get it solved. We've got a lot of work to do. We have a lot of opportunities as a league to grow the game, to address our issues in a new collectrive bargaining agreement that will serve us all well including the players, the clubs and most importantly the fans.

"We have a responsibility here to the fans to make sure that we deal with our game in a responsible fashion. They want to see football and that's our job and we should get to work.''

Simply put, there should be no stopping the Saints this season. QB Drew Brees might still be one of the most underrated players in football in spite of the fact that he just led his team to a win in Super Bowl XLIV last year. He has offensive weapons at his disposal second to none in the NFC, and with a defense that has a tendency to turn you over, HC Sean Peyton should be heading back to the postseason with another division title in tote.

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But Monday at the Saints training camp may rank as one of them.

In the morning session, working on third-down plays, Brees and the offense were clearly out of sync and the reigning Super Bowl MVP hit on just 2 of his 7 attempts. Those numbers probably went a long way to explaining why, after just about every player had hit the locker room, Brees still had the quarterbacks on the practice field working with receivers Marques Colston and Robert Meachem, both of whom are sure to be key cogs in the Saints offense but both of whom are currently on the physically unable to perform list and consequently not involved in practice.

No one is concerned about Brees, of course, but the immediate payoff from Jeremy Shockey the extra morning work was hardly apparent in the afternoon when he connected on just four of eight passes, and two of them were very close to being intercepted, especially one over the middle that hit safety Malcolm Jenkins right in the hands but was dropped.

To be sure, it wasn't all on Brees. In the morning, a wide open Reggie Bush dropped a deep ball, albeit not one perfectly thrown but still one that should have been caught, and Bush later dropped one Brees threw low at his feet. In the afternoon, Bush seemed confused on a route and stopped when Brees threw deep. Bush turned in a solid performance that he lost the ball in the lights but that didn't excuse him from the conference Coach Sean Payton requested immediately thereafter.