Saints running back Mark Ingram has been ruled out of Sunday’s game against the St. Louis Rams, coach Sean Payton said Friday.

Ingram suffered a bruised heel in the Saints’ 62-7 win against Indianapolis on Sunday night and missed practice for the third consecutive day on Friday.

To compensate for Ingram’s absence, Payton said the club would activate Chris Ivory from the active/physically unable to perform list to the 53-man active roster. Ivory, the club’s leading rusher last season, practiced throughout the week and has fully recovered from offseason surgery to repair a broken bone in his foot, Payton said.

That’s all the news for today.

The New Orleans Saints seemingly received all of the breaks in 2009. Last season, they seemingly got none.

So far, 2011 has been breaking just as bad. They had to open the season on the road against arguably the league’s best team. And they did so without their kicker and best pass rusher, who’s serving a 3-year-old suspension.

Two weeks into this young season the club already has eight players on injured lists and five players on the weekly injury report.

One name among the infirmed sticks out: Marques Colston. Easily the worst break of the season was the one to the right side of the star receiver’s collarbone. Colston is expected to miss four weeks while his surgically repaired clavicle mends.

The Saints have weathered injuries. They’ve lost nearly every skill-position player on the roster during the past five years and still managed to ring up yards and points like a pinball machine.

Colston, though, is different. He’s an outlier in the Saints’ high-powered offense. He’s the No. 1 receiver, the “X” in football lingo, the primary receiver in most NFL offenses. Next to Drew Brees, he’s the one cog in the machine that might be indispensable.

Robert Meachem, Lance Moore, Devery Henderson and Adrian Arrington all have the ability, know-how and experience to play the X. Collectively, they might be able to replace him. But none of them is Colston, a rare package of size, speed and agility, with grip-lock hands.

The Saints will move the ball without Colston. They still have more weapons than 80 percent of the teams in the NFL. Scoring, though, could be an issue. The Saints ranked 20th in the NFL in red-zone offense last season and scored only one touchdown in five red-zone trips last week.

Colston is Brees’ go-to guy in the red zone. He has made a living working the middle on red-zone mismatches in the slot. Only five NFL receivers have scored more touchdowns than Colston’s 40 since 2006. He’s Brees’ security blanket in clutch situations, not only in the red zone but on third down.

This is where his loss will be felt most. Defenses now can concentrate their efforts even more on Moore on third down and tight end Jimmy Graham in the red zone.

The Saints are 4-4 in games played without Colston. In the lone game he missed last season, the Saints passed for 199 yards. It was the only time last season they failed to gain 200 yards through the air. Coincidence?

Colston has never been fully appreciated, by fans or the national media, in part because he refuses to draw attention to himself. He might be the only receiver in the NFL without a Twitter account. But his coaches and teammates know how important he is to their success.

“He’s a 6-foot-5 slot receiver. There are not too many of those in the NFL,” Moore said.

“He’s a quiet guy, but when he talks to you, he’s a guy that you do listen to, because of who he is and the numbers he has put up,” Meachem said.

Colston’s quiet demeanor belies an inner toughness, which was on full display in the final seconds of the Packers’ loss. He suffered his injury while making a spectacular diving 23-yard catch with 31 seconds left. Colston said he felt the pop and the pain and knew immediately he’d broken his clavicle.

Normally, he’d have subbed out of the game, but the Saints were in hurry-up mode and out of timeouts. Rules dictate a 10-second run-off of the play clock in such situations.

Colston said he wasn’t aware of the run-off rule. But he knew time was of the essence. Every second counted, and he wasn’t about to waste one, even with his shoulder throbbing in pain.

So Colston did what he’d been coached to do. He ran to his position, lined up and ran the next play. Replay images show Colston doubled-over in pain while positioning himself for the next snap.

And then he did it again when Brees finally stopped the clock with a spike.

Yet, even then, with the clock stopped and time available to substitute a teammate, Colston stayed in the game for the final play.

“Nobody wants to volunteer to come out of the game,” Colston said this week. “I knew I was hurt, but … I take pride in being a tough player.”

It’s debatable whether Colston was helping or hurting the team in that instance. After all, he was essentially a one-armed target. Maybe he didn’t want to let down his teammates. Maybe he thought he could serve as a decoy, and indeed, Packers safeties Morgan Burnett and Nick Collins were trailing him on A.J. Hawk’s fateful interference on Darren Sproles.

Regardless, his effort epitomized the traits team officials preach about daily: character; selflessness; mental and physical toughness.

Hopefully the club will consider his courage along with his catches when contract talks begin with him on a new deal.

“I figured something was wrong obviously when he’s holding his shoulder and hanging it in a weird position,” Brees said Wednesday. “We just felt like if he was doing that, something was probably wrong and for him to stay in when his team needed him for those last two plays, obviously, it says a lot about him as a player and his toughness.”

Plain and simple, Colston is a winner. And now the Saints must try to win without him.

Starting today against the Chicago Bears, everyone is going to discover how difficult that can be.

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The New Orleans Saints signed Coach Sean Payton to a multiyear extension Monday, another step in an evolving policy of ensuring the organization locks up talented people in its top rungs for the foreseeable future.

Quarterback Drew Brees represents the last and perhaps most important cog in that machine, but with Payton and General Manager Mickey Loomis on board long term the club is widely expected to ink a blockbuster deal with Brees in the near future.

Those three are generally recognized as the trio that turned the Saints around, transforming one of the worst outfits in professional sports into a perennial playoff factor and Super Bowl champion.

The terms of Payton’s deal, which will run through the 2015 season, were not disclosed. However, it is believed to have propelled him into the top salary ranks of the NFL coaching fraternity and, if true, his annual pay would jump from somewhere north of $4 million to the neighborhood of $6 million or beyond.

Payton said he was grateful for the stamp of approval the deal represented.

“It is good news and I would start by recognizing the significant role that Mickey Loomis and (owner) Tom Benson have had not just in this contract for me but the stability and the success we’ve had as an organization,” Payton said. “I’m very thankful to have that opportunity here for another five years.”

When asked if his new pay scale represented a thank you for past accomplishments or a demand for new ones, Payton chuckled.

“It’s a performance-based business,” he said. “And our jobs as coaches, our jobs as front office people, our jobs as players are to be competitive and win. And I think when you have that success then these type of things happen.”

The success thus far has been unprecedented for the Saints. Payton, 47, took over as coach in 2006 and since then has taken a team with one playoff victory in its previous 39 years into the postseason three times. Twice those trips went to the NFC championship game and, in 2009, beyond as the Saints won Super Bowl XLIV.

Overall, Payton has amassed a 53-33 record with New Orleans.

“I also recognize the fluidness, if you will, of the profession in regards to each year you see six or seven head coaches that are out of jobs,” he said. “And so we’ve started, awhile back, in 2006 in trying to build something that is consistent, trying to build a program and that’s something that really never stops. You don’t ever really arrive, you’re just constantly ongoing.”

Benson echoed that point in a statement issued by the team.

“Our goal is to continue to build a TRADITION of winning here in New Orleans and Sean represents that tradition,” the statement read with the emphasis in the original.

The deal is presumed to make Payton among the league’s most handsomely compensated coaches. Salary information on NFL coaches is notoriously thin, but Patriots Coach Bill Belichick and Washington’s Mike Shanahan are multiple Super Bowl winners who, at roughly $7 million per year, are reputedly the top paid coaches in professional football, according to an analysis performed by Forbes magazine earlier this year.

Behind them were a cluster of coaches in the $5 million to $6 million range. They include Chicago’s Lovie Smith, the Giants’ Tom Coughlin, Philadelphia’s Andy Reid and Arizona’s Ken Whisenhunt. All of them have gotten a team to a Super Bowl and, in Coughlin’s case, won one.

Packers Coach Mike McCarthy, who was hired the same year New Orleans engaged Payton and is his opponent in the upcoming NFL season opener Thursday night, is also reportedly a member of the plus-$5 million club. McCarthy joined with a contract extension he signed within a month of Green Bay’s victory last February in Super Bowl XLV.

With only two exceptions — Seattle’s Pete Carroll and San Francisco’s Jim Harbaugh — all of the highest paid coaches are proven winners in the NFL. The league’s 10 top-paid coaches have a winning percentage of .591, Forbes reported, and have combined to win 41 division titles and seven Super Bowls since the early 1990s.

Payton’s extension should also lay to rest speculation that arose in the off-season about his long-term intentions when it was revealed he had bought a mansion in suburban Dallas and his family was moving there. Though Payton did his best to tamp down fears among Saints fans that signaled a desire on the part of their team’s best head coach to ply his trade elsewhere, there were still rumblings among the Saints faithful that Payton had one eye on the Cowboys’ job.

“The speculation arises from that more than anything else,” Payton insisted at the NFL owners meeting in New Orleans last March. “It’s not a big topic otherwise.”

Still, a contract extension had been a big topic among Saints executives, Loomis confirmed.

“It’s been in the works for a little bit of time,” he said, adding it was the club that initiated extension talks.

Loomis declined to provide details, but did say the deal in no way reflected any fear Payton could win up coaching somewhere else in the near future.

“It’s important clearly,” Loomis said. “Sean is a large part of the success of our club the last five years, but I don’t think going to another team is part of the consideration here at all. Sean clearly wanted to remain the head coach of the New Orleans Saints. We clearly wanted him to remain the coach of the New Orleans Saints. It was just a matter of working out details.”

Loomis confirmed what Brees has also said on more than one occasion, namely that talks are ongoing between the quarterback and the club about a deal that is expected to make Brees among the highest paid players in football. Judging from contracts signed recently by New England’s Tom Brady and Indianapolis’ Peyton Manning, players who are also the heart and soul of their teams, Brees’ deal seems likely to be around $18 million a season. Brees will earn a $9.8 million base salary this season, the last year of his contract.

Payton said it is no secret Brees is next in line, but he said he did not think there was any preordained order to when the deals are concluded. In fact, a coach’s contract is generally a more streamlined document than a quarterback’s and thus it is no surprise his was wrapped up prior to Brees, according to Payton.

“The two didn’t really cross over at all,” Payton said of the parallel negotiations. “They’re two separate entities. I know there’s been discussions — I’m not really in that loop per se in regards to a player’s contract like Mickey would be. And yet we’ve got full confidence that’s coming and so this really wasn’t tied to that. It could have very easily happened in a different order and I think the contract that we did here with the club is a little bit simpler and less complicated than that would be of a player such as Drew Brees.”

Several players were still unaware of their coach’s deal when the Saints’ locker room opened up Monday afternoon, but the players were pleased and for the most part said continuity at the top does pay on-field dividends.

“I think if you’re here and you’re here long term as well — like myself, I’ve been here six years and I’ve gotten to have the same head coach, the same GM, and I think it’s important,” linebacker Scott Shanle said. Shanle and Brees are two of the eight players on the Saints’ roster who have been here for Payton’s entire tenure.

“But I think a lot of the time it really depends on how long you’ve been in one spot,” Shanle added. “None of us know how much longer you’re going to be anywhere. But I think if you’re a young player or a high draft pick and you know you’re going to be somewhere for three, four more years I think it’s encouraging when you see a team sign a GM or a coach to an extension that shows there’s certainty there and that always helps.”

•••••••

James Varney can be reached at jvarney@timespicayune.com or 504.717.1156.

There is the quick update of the day.

Tue, 06 Sep 2011 8:50a.m.

Thanks for reading! .

In his remarks to reporters Monday, Saints Coach Sean Payton revealed a handful of roster moves the club has made.

Offensive tackle William Robinson and guard Dennis Landolt were signed to practice squad deals, along with wide receiver Montez Billings who has bounced on-and-off the Saints practice squad roster for two years now.

To make room for that trio, the Saints released quarterback Sean Canfield, long snapper Kyle Nelson, and center Cecil Newton.

Payton also formally announced the arrival of tight end John Gilmore, who was given No. 89. Gilmore’s signing was reported Sunday. Linebacker Ramon Humber was released by the club to open up the roster spot for Gilmore. 

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Oakland, Calif. – You might recall the last time the New Orleans Saints played at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum.

It was Week 3 of the 2009 preseason, and the 45-7 rout of the Raiders served notice of special things to come.

They say exhibition games are meaningless, but with the benefit of hindsight, there was plenty of meaning in the Saints’ dominant performance that night. The Saints scored touchdowns on their first three drives and the defense forced and recovered three fumbles.

Halfway through the preseason, we have yet to see such dominance from these Saints. So far they’ve battered a bad team and been bludgeoned by a good one.

Less than two weeks before the regular-season opener in Green Bay, it would be nice to see the Saints make a similar statement tonight as they did two years ago.

“I feel like we have the ability to be a better team than we were last year, two years ago or three years ago,” quarterback Drew Brees said this week. “I think that is the goal here, to continue to build this team and develop young guys. We are in position now where I think we are set for a great opportunity with all the pieces to the puzzle we have in place.”

Otherwise, the Saints have little left to accomplish this preseason.

The installation of the offensive and defensive playbook is complete, thanks to a week of cramming in the California cool.

The roster is essentially set. Saints General Manager Mickey Loomis and Coach Sean Payton will have a couple of tough decisions to make to determine the final 53, but this week’s first cut will be fairly painless.

The starting lineup, other than the two outside linebacker spots, is established. Twenty of the 22 starting spots are essentially set in stone, since it appears the club is going to go with veteran Pierre Thomas to start the season at tailback. Remember that supposed competition between Zach Strief and Charles Brown at right tackle? Didn’t last long, did it?

The primary goals for the Saints in the next 11 days are to mend and meld. The injury list numbered a ridiculous 17 names last week. Fortunately, most of the bumps and bruises are relatively minor. A swollen joint here, a strained muscle there.

The only regulars in jeopardy of missing the opener appear to be defensive tackle Aubrayo Franklin, cornerback Johnny Patrick and running back Chris Ivory, who appears bound for the physically unable to perform list. The Saints could use their talents, but none of the three were projected to start.

Receiver Lance Moore, left guard Carl Nicks, defensive tackle Sedrick Ellis and safety Roman Harper are expected to return to practice this week. Their health is of greater importance. That’s why the Saints are being extra conservative with their field time.

The week of training camp in Oxnard did wonders for the club’s morale. Players and coaches frolicked in the idyllic weather and bonded in the relative seclusion of the River Ridge Field campus.

To a man, the players and coaches said the week on the West Coast was exactly what the Saints needed to plow through the preseason hump.

“We’re just getting through the dog days of camp,” defensive line coach Bill Johnson said. “We don’t have a lot of quickness and speed on the field (because) we don’t have a lot of (regulars) on the field. It’s time to get them freshened up and ready to go, and get the right combinations of people playing together.”

So keep that in mind as you watch the game tonight. The most important factor tonight is health. At the same time, it would also be nice to see the Saints make a statement.

“I think there is a confidence level and pride level amongst this team where there is no meaningless game,” Brees said. “Even though it is the preseason and it doesn’t count for anything in the stat book, it counts with us as far as our sense of pride and the statement that we want to make every time we step on the field.”

Jeff Duncan can be reached at jduncan@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3404.

There is the quick update of the day.

What had been slated as the New Orleans Saints’ first practice in pads Sunday went on without them and was, in fact, a bid of a dud until they started to thud.

Using only helmets and shoulder pads, the Saints were surprisingly physical, with several loud collisions and, in the case of rookie running back Mark Ingram, a shock warning about what the former Heisman Trophy winner from Alabama should expect in the NFL.

In his first full professional practice, Ingram took a handoff and went off left-tackle, got through the line and into the secondary. Thinking the play was over, he slowed and straightened a bit, enough for safety Malcolm Jenkins to cruise across, lower the boom just under Ingram’s shoulder pads. The hit sent Ingram, his helmet and the ball sprawling. New Orleans’ defenders ignored the prized first-round pick sprawled on the ground and instead swarmed for the loose ball as defensive coaches whooped approval.

Ingram said he had no problem with any of it. Rather, he took the lesson to heart.

“This is the first time we’ve put on our pads and helmets, and we’re actually thudding some,” Ingram said. “I think everybody was excited, everybody was a little anxious and excited at the first day of hitting. We’re just out there playing ball.

“When the play is over they’re still stripping the ball so, button up. I thought it was over, but they stripped the ball. It’s all good. It didn’t happen any more. So, corrected.”

Ingram joined third-round pick, Illinois linebacker Martez Wilson, in making his NFL debut Sunday. The pair joined fellow 2011 draft picks Johnny Patrick, Greg Romeus and Nate Bussey, who signed deals last week. Only California defensive end Cameron Jordan, the club’s first overall selection last April, remains unsigned and off the field.

Jordan has been issuing a barrage of tweets, all of them vaguely positive, but as of late Sunday no deal had been announced by his team or the franchise.

Ingram made his mark in the college game as a running back, and he’s sure to be slotted there in New Orleans, but on Sunday the Saints also had him deep fielding kickoffs. That’s just fine with him.

“I returned a few at Alabama, so I’ve been returning kicks my whole life,” he said. “If they need me to do it, I’ll do it.”

The Saints needed him to do it, in part, because the free agents the club has re-signed are barred from practicing until at least Thursday. That means players like Courtney Roby, the team’s principal kickoff returner the last two seasons, is in Metairie and in meetings but not allowed to participate in physical activities.

Coach Sean Payton said the unorthodox situation is one all 32 clubs face.

“It’s not that we don’t have a lot of veteran players here,” he said. “It’s that we’re missing 25 percent of our team, and I think every team is dealing with those same issues, so you just have to be flexible with your practice schedule and adjust to it. I think Monday or Tuesday, we might adjust a little bit with a time change.”

The decision to forego pads but allow some hitting also was tied to the fluctuating roster.

“It was similar to full pads,” Payton said. “We went with helmets and shoulder pads. I think more than anything else there’s the progression of getting them used to carrying this gear, which we have time to do that.”

One of the clearest bridges on the team between the veterans Payton referred to and the rookies finding their way is tight end Jimmy Graham, a second-year players out of Miami. Graham, a third-round pick by the Saints in the 2010 draft, played well in his rookie campaign and has emerged at camp as a major cog in New Orleans’ offense.

He has that role in part by default, as the Saints released tight end Jeremy Shockey in the offseason and have yet to sign free agents David Thomas and Tory Humphrey. That leaves Graham as the only experienced tight end on the team, and quarterback Drew Brees has targeted him repeatedly — and almost always successfully — over the first three days.

Graham has packed on 10 pounds of muscle and now weighs 265, the better to handle increased blocking duties and more hits over the middle, he said.

“I can easily go to 280 and become a tackle, that’s no problem for me,” he joked.

In a more serious vein, Graham isn’t surprised Brees seeks him out in so many drills. That’s all part of the two building confidence in the connection, he said.

“It’s a completely different feeling,” he said. “Before, I could watch the reps before and get some mental reps in, and then get focused. Now it’s just get focused, you’re up and this is the tone.”

Still, he misses Thomas, whom Graham described as a something like another coach. In almost any aspect of the game, from footwork on routes to mental preparation, Graham said it’s Thomas to whom he turns.

“Definitely,” he said when asked if he was surprised by Thomas’ absence. “He’s a big leader for me. He’s like my brother, and this offense works off of him. I just want him back. He answers a lot of the questions that I have. He’s invaluable to this team and getting back to the Super Bowl.”

In his absence, though, Graham seems to have shouldered a bigger leadership role easily.

“I try not to think about it too much,” he said. “I’m going to attack this year just like I attacked last year and just try to absorb as much as I can from as many people as I can.”

Gotta run!.