We had this very, very tall, enormously big white guy named (offensive tackle) Zach Strief in the seventh round that everybody was excited about as well.New Orleans Saints legend John Carney talked with local media on Jul. Nicks departed New Orleans after the 2011 season, signing a lucrative free agent deal with Tampa Bay.Evans actually played tackle in his redshirt freshman year at Bloomsburg (PA), played a little guard, but the last three years of college, he played tackle, certainly not a portend of things to come at the NFL level.The Saints went 13-3 but did not earn home field advantage in the playoffs.Evans was not the “can’t miss” prospect from youth to high school, from prep to college, from college to the pros.For Jahri Evans, reaching the zenith of his profession was a long, arduous journey. 17"For me to be able to go in with the greatest player in my draft class in Jahri Evans, who I'm hoping will be a (Pro Football) Hall of Famer Hall of Famer at some point in his life, I couldn't ask for more," Harper said.
All Rights Reserved"It means a lot," Evans said. Good things just always happen to good people, it seems like. Harper also appeared in eight postseason contests with seven starts for the Black and Gold, posting 47 tackles (29 solo), 1.5 sacks, five passes defensed and two forced fumbles. He was bigger than me, he was stronger than me, he was still as athletic as I was and able to do a lot of great things. And you had one copy of it. “Carl was the complete package. “Luckily, New Orleans saw my value and they picked third out of their draft picks and picked Reggie and Roman before me and I made a career out of it.Evans is proud of the legacy he and his teammates created over his 11 seasons in New Orleans but lamented what could have been. "The tape on Roman you saw every angle possible," Payton said. I never in my lifetime thought I would see people in New Orleans saying ‘f…. It means that we put up a lot of points and won a lot of games, and that's a test.
“We just knew we had to keep getting at it.
Bloomsburg was coming off a national championship. But Harper wasn't so sure about the others in his draft class. He was as athletic as anyone at the professional level.“It’s amazing,” Evans said. When the tape was watched on Roman, you had every angle possible. Jahri Evans and Roman Harper went through it all together. I always told myself that I would never let that happen again, and that's kind of the mind-set I took. 23'You're built to kind of withstand some of the outside distractions that other teams aren't''I know a couple of things about longevity'New Orleans Saints legend Jon Stinchcomb talked with local media on Jul. "But in both cases, the tape didn't lie. 'I know how to include people and engage people for a higher purpose'Harper started five games as a rookie before tearing his ACL. Immediately, we were all thrown in the fire and I think we all responded the right way. 'Every day they're going to have to find ways to put guys in highly stressful situations to see how you respond'Evans, one of the most decorated offensive linemen in franchise history, spent 11 seasons as a New Orleans Saint (2006-16). There’s a lot of great players out there that don’t have any.”As the underdog who was a virtual afterthought of having a chance to even play in the NFL, Evans is a great man and was a great player, now getting his just due with induction into the Saints Hall of Fame. It is the nature of the business.”“I woke up late to whatever happened,” Evans said. Evans was selected to the club's All-50th team in 2016.New Orleans Saints legend Jed Collins talked with local media on Jul.
“I hoped we could have stayed together for a longer period of time,” Evans said. It didn’t come down to one play. ""When I got drafted in '06, my goal was first to make the team, and then when an opportunity came about for me to actually play and start, that's where my mind was set to be: To try to be the best player I could be," he said. The New Orleans Saints celebrate former guard Jahri Evans as he is inducted into the Saints Hall of Fame class of 2020. You saw sideline, end zone, you saw end-zone tight, sideline tight. So I was just very eager and very ready to go get it. Once we got back there and Coach Payton has always been a good motivator and showed us some videos of what happened in the city and stuff, we knew we had an opportunity to bring a lot of joy to a lot of people. "I didn't play organized football until ninth grade," he said.