| | By Doug Brien
Special to ESPN.com
Editor's note: What is life in an NFL training camp like? Kicker Doug Brien takes you inside the camp of the New Orleans Saints with his weekday diary for ESPN.com.
Monday, Aug. 14
THIBODAUX, La. -- One of the things I really like about coach Jim Haslett is his positive attitude. When we left Indianapolis Saturday night I was disappointed. I had missed a 45-yard field goal, which hit the left upright (again), that resulted in the team getting shutout for the first time in the preseason in a long time. | |  | |
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However, after sitting through our team meeting this morning, I walked away with a different spin on things. Although we lost 17-0, Coach Haslett pointed out that we had played the Colts pretty tough. We held their first-string offense to two field goals and they wouldn't have gotten those if it weren't for a couple of dumb plays. We lost the game because we didn't do the little things: We had a lot of penalties, we turned the ball over, and we didn't execute well on special teams. But, our overall effort was very high and we did do a lot of things well. Coach Haslett was happy with the effort because he felt like we could fix everything that we did wrong. After Coach Haslett described how he saw the game, I had a more positive attitude toward how we played the Colts.
I am sure you couldn't tell on TV, but the field at Purdue was very thick -- the thickest I have ever played on. Coach Haslett described it as "trying to kick out of the rough." It made for a challenging night of kicking. Even during warm-ups I was pulling the ball left because I kept hitting the ball "fat" or taking too much grass in my swing. It was a lot like trying to hit a golf ball out of the fairway rough. If you take a divot (hit the grass) it can turn your club head and change the direction of your shot. After watching my kick on film this morning, it was obvious that I had taken a big fat divot, which caused me to pull the ball slightly. I am not disappointed that Purdue University's field is not a site for regular-season games.
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I am not
disappointed that Purdue University's field is not a site for regular-season
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Speaking of Purdue University, somebody in their athletic department made a bad decision on hosting our game. Apparently they needed 33,000 fans to attend the game to break even because they had guaranteed each team $500,000. The stands looked more like a high school game with only about 20,000 fans in attendance and Purdue had to eat the difference. In addition, the site made for a frustrating evening. We had to bus over an hour each way to get to Purdue on top of our flying time, which made for a long trip. We also had to cram over 100 players and coaches in the smallest locker room I have ever seen. There literally was not room for everyone to be dressing at one time. That made for an interesting scene after the game: Everyone was trying to shower and dress and then the media started to claw their way in; it was gridlock. I saw guys still dressing as they hustled out of the locker room to avoid the mob of people.
Material from kicking.com.
Visit Doug Brien's web site at http://www.kicking.com
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