The caller from the Gulf Coast stared Hurricane Isaac in the eye and refused to blink, bracing himself for an unsettling day ahead.

"It's raining pretty hard, and it's blowing pretty fierce," Deuce McAllister said late Tuesday night as he hunkered down inside a Gulfport, Miss., hotel lobby. "It's a big storm. But believe me, I've seen worse."

For a second or two, McAllister and I allowed ourselves an ironic chuckle at the absurdity of his understatement. Seven years ago, when he was a star running back for the Saints and I was a senior writer for Sports Illustrated, we spent two days in the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Katrina touring evacuation shelters in Mississippi and bearing vivid and surreal witness to the flooded devastation of New Orleans.

That was how we met – experiencing the worst natural disaster in U.S. history with up-close-and-personal clarity – and in the years since neither of us has come close to forgetting the destruction, displacement and emotion we

NEW ORLEANS – The day after he made the infamous speech that would provide a chilling context to the New Orleans Saints' pay-for-injury scandal, Gregg Williams engaged in a conspicuous display of recklessness that some in the Crescent City still find even harder to forgive.

In the final stages of a rollicking, divisional-round playoff clash between the Saints and San Francisco 49ers which featured more mood swings than a "Keeping Up With the Kardashians" episode, Williams, the Saints' blitz-happy defensive coordinator, refused to sit back and play it safe. Even with the Niners 67 yards from the end zone with 40 seconds remaining, he sent extra pass rushers after quarterback Alex Smith, allowing tight end Vernon Davis to make a pair of indelible catches that catapulted his team to a 36-32 victory.Gregg Williams (AP)

After the game New Orleans free safety Malcolm Jenkins, burned by Davis in single coverage on the 47-yard reception that set up the tight end's 14-yard game-winner, summed it up

FLOWERY BRANCH, Ga. – As the latest, costliest addition to a star-studded attack, Julio Jones still struggles to reconcile the fade route the Atlanta Falcons ran in their one-and-done 2011 postseason with the team's wealth of offensive talent.

After all, with Matt Ryan throwing to Jones, Pro Bowl wideout Roddy White and future Hall of Fame tonight Tony Gonzalez – when he's not handing off to workhorse halfback Michael Turner – the promising receiver believes defensive coordinators are faced with an untenable task.

"You know what I would do? Just pack up my stuff and go home," Jones said, laughing, after a training camp practice at the team's training facility last Saturday. "I mean, who are you gonna double? Tony? Roddy? Me? That's six people. What are you gonna do?" The Falcons are expecting big things from second-year receiver Julio Jones. (US Presswire) 

That was the vision that inspired Falcons general manager Thomas Dimitroff to swing one of the biggest draft day blockbusters of recent years, dealing five picks, including a pair of first-rounders, to the Cleveland

NEW ORLEANS – The ball flashed across the middle of the opposing secondary, its destination unclear – until, in an instant, a pair of hands reached out and snatched it out of the artificially cooled air. The hands belonged to Justin Blackmon, the Jacksonville Jaguars’ high-profile rookie receiver, who was about to complete the first possession of his first NFL preseason game with a 16-yard touchdown catch.

On the opposite side of the Mercedes-Benz Superdome, Shad (Shahid) Khan, the Jaguars’ rookie owner, broke off an interview in mid-sentence and let out a loud “Whooooooooo!” that reverberated throughout the visiting owner’s suite. He and his son, Tony, the team’s senior vice president of football technology and analytics, embraced emphatically, thrilled that the player for whom they traded up to draft with the fifth overall pick in April had made such an auspicious debut.

“He is the real thing,” Khan said of Blackmon, sporting a massive smile under his iconic mustache. “On draft

NEW ORLEANS – Blaine Gabbert took a beating as a rookie, literally and figuratively, and the football world took notice. Pummeled in the pocket with impunity during the Jacksonville Jaguars' hot mess of a 2011 season, the 10th overall pick in that year's draft became a similarly statuesque target for critics.

There were whispers – OK, even flat-out pronouncements – that Gabbert was scared, which is pretty much the worst adjective that can be hurled at a quarterback.

Blaine Gabbert is hit by Justin Tuck in last week's preseason game. (AP)Yet as he prepares for his second NFL season, Gabbert is still standing – and sounds ready to fight back.

"I think that's part of our job description: Deal with the crap," Gabbert said Thursday evening at the Jags' French Quarter hotel, a day before the quarterback completed 13 of 16 passes for 112 yards and two touchdowns in the team's 27-24 preseason win over the Saints. "But for people to say [I'm scared], I just don't understand it. They've never played in the NFL. They really don't know what goes on,

SPARTANBURG, S.C. – For Steve Smith, his psychic departure from the Carolina Panthers began during the middle of the dismal 2010 season, when the frustrated wideout was openly discussing the prospect of relocation with several of his NFL peers.

Through good and bad times, Steve Smith tends to wear his gameface. (AP)As the Panthers, owners of the NFL's lowest-rated passing offense, sputtered through a lifeless, 2-14 campaign, opposing players offered Smith condolences and made outright overtures for his services.

"I had guys telling me, 'Hey, come over to my team, we could use you over here,' " Smith recalled Tuesday from Wofford College, the Panthers' training camp home. "This was during games."

Was the receiver receptive? "No comment," Smith said, laughing.

It's no secret that, emotionally, Smith is in a much better place now, as he prepares to begin his 12th NFL season. Though he retains the fury, defiance and unrelenting passion that has helped the 5-foot-9, 185-pounder become one of the premier pass-catchers of his generation,

CHICAGO – The pass fell incomplete, the play-clock started ticking, and Peyton Manning, football's ultimate stickler for detail, did something completely out of character.

The future Hall of Fame quarterback had just taken his first official snap in 19 months – and his first as a member of the Denver Broncos, the team he chose last March after his high-profile divorce with the Indianapolis Colts – and instead of gathering his offensive teammates and setting up for a second-and-10 play, Manning took a moment to gaze across the wet Soldier Field grass, reflect on a year's worth of intensive rehabilitation from a nerve injury to his neck and soak up the significance of his return. Peyton Manning took 12 snaps on Thursday against the Bears. (AP)

No, Manning would not be perfect on this rainy night in the Windy City, completing 4-of-7 passes for 44 yards and ending his only series with a red-zone interception, and thus producing none of the points in the Broncos' 31-3 victory over the Chicago Bears in their 2012 preseason opener Thursday.

CHICAGO – When Peyton Manning steps onto the Soldier Field grass Thursday night to play his first game in 19 months, one of the greatest quarterbacks in NFL history will be ready for some football, in all its violent splendor.

Peyton Manning during Broncos practice last weekend. (AP)"I'm excited to get going," Denver Broncos executive vice president of football operations John Elway said Wednesday evening, shortly after arriving at the team's hotel near the Chicago Bears' home field. "Whether Peyton gets hit or not, it's exciting to get him on the football field. Instead of talking about what might happen, we can talk about that.

"As a quarterback, you always enjoy taking that first [hit]."

It's quite possible that the man staring across the line of scrimmage from charged-up behemoths such as All-Pro defensive end Julius Peppers, and is coming off neck-fusion surgery that sidelined him for the last of his 14 seasons with the Indianapolis Colts, does not share his new boss's enthusiasm for contact.

After all, while Elway