Ron Paul feud with Donald Trump: Who's winning?

Donald Trump said there's no way Ron Paul can win the presidential election. Ron Paul has called the planned Donald Trump-moderated presidential debate 'inappropriate' and vowed to skip it. Others might follow suit.?

Ron Paul and Donald Trump are oil and water, fire and ice, Schwartz and Harbaugh. They?re two people whose personal styles just don?t seem to mesh.

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Unlike most other GOP contenders, Congressman Paul hasn?t flown to New York for a sit-down with the Donald and some sort of public meal. For his part, Mr. Trump for months has dismissed Paul as a candidate who has no chance to win the Republican nomination.

Now they?re feuding over the fact that Trump is scheduled to moderate a GOP debate on Dec. 27. Will Paul attend? No. He?s planning to be busy.

But the Texas libertarian didn?t just check ?Won?t be there? on the RSVP card and send it back to debate sponsor Newsmax. He had his spokesman issue a scathing press release that made it clear Paul would rather triple the budget of the Department of Education than answer questions posed by the developer/reality show star.

?The selection of a reality television personality to host a presidential debate that voters nationwide will be watching is beneath the office of the Presidency and flies in the fact of that office?s history and dignity,? the release starts.

Among the words that figure in the rest of the text are ?circus-like,? ?inappropriate,? and ?frivolously.? You can figure out the rest from there.

Trump was on morning shows Monday promoting a new book and pushed back against Paul?s criticisms.

Ron Paul ?has no chance to win,? the Donald said Monday on Fox and Friends. ?He doesn?t care if Iran gets a nuclear weapon that could wipe out Israel.?

Warming to the subject, Trump dismissed Paul as someone who is ?cutesy? and has some ?nice little slogans.?

Who do we think is winning here?

Well, given that many of the debates this cycle have featured production values just short of a reality show, the fact that an actual reality show star will host a GOP confab should not be that surprising. The leap from Wolf Blitzer to Donald Trump may be shorter than we journalists suspect.

However, Paul has lots of allies on this issue ? among them GOP establishment figures who think things are going too far. On Sunday, columnist George Will said that the GOP hopefuls should skip Trump?s show. The candidates should ?do something presidential, stand up and say, ?We?re not going to be hijacked and participate in this,? said Mr. Will on ABC?s "This Week."

Karl Rove agrees. The former Bush political guru said on Monday during a Fox News appearance that it?s odd for Trump to moderate a GOP debate given that the billionaire has continued to hint he might run as an independent.

?The Republican National Committee chairman ought to step in and say we strongly discourage every candidate from appearing,? said Rove.

So in that sense, Paul is just giving voice to the suspicions of many in the GOP that Trump is using the party for his own gain, rather than the other way round. Given that part of Paul?s appeal to his core supporters is his tough talk, they?ll probably love him all the more for schooling the Donald.

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/kTVC6rbDhtI/Ron-Paul-feud-with-Donald-Trump-Who-s-winning

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So much for balance: NBA players still calling their shots

Before the NBA lockout began in July, Chris Paul and Dwight Howard had the leverage to wriggle out of their current small-market, low-revenue teams and move to the major-market, high-revenue franchises of their choosing. Owners of those smaller franchises hated it, and bettering their chances of keeping the Pauls and Howards of the league was their goal.

Now the lockout is all but over, the NBA is set to get back to business, the schedule is days away from being finalized ? and Chris Paul and Dwight Howard have the leverage to wriggle out of their small-market teams and move to major-market ones.

So, shutting down the league for five months and starting the season two months late accomplished ? what, exactly?

Well, it didn?t accomplish that. The so-called LeBron effect, the player-generated construction of supposed super-teams, is still in play. New Orleans, owned and operated by the league for the time being, can?t hold onto Paul any better now than it could have on June 30. Orlando is still in a lose-lose situation with Howard, just as it was before the lockout.

Paul reportedly wants to go to the Knicks, to complete the Big Apple version of Miami?s Big Three, with Carmelo Anthony and Amare Stoudemire. Howard has been ticketed for the Lakers seemingly forever?or at least since he started seriously and publicly hedging about extending with Orlando.

To hear both the hardliners and David Stern intimate during the lockout, this level of player self-determination would be the NBA?s downfall, and the very survival of the New Orleanses and Orlandos depended on giving such franchises more power, and giving both the players and the mega-franchises less.

Millions of dollars and acres of goodwill were sacrificed for this as the sides dug in. The salary cap was hardened. Prohibitive luxury taxes were added. All sorts of protection for teams trying to hold onto free agents were created. This was done in the name of ?competitive balance,? on the court and at the bank.

Maybe in time, there will be balance in terms of how the owners split the pot among themselves. For certain, they got a much bigger pot to split?that was, after all, the goal that really mattered, taking back around seven percent of the revenue from the players, under all the pretenses they sold to the public (which the public swallowed whole, as usual).

But in the first few weeks of post-lockout life, big-name players are still showing every sign of calling their own shots. Their ability to do so hasn?t been curtailed at all.

If so, the basketball world would be talking about how the Hornets could build on the surge from last season under new front-office management, a new coach and their All-Star point guard?not to mention, talking about the buyers who would try snatch up a team with such a valuable asset and a bright future.

Orlando? Less talk about a second all-universe big man forced to bolt (after Shaq 15 years ago), more talk about how the Magic can resume their staredown with their loaded, star-studded rivals to the south for Eastern Conference supremacy and, as an aside, Florida bragging rights.

And it wouldn?t be just those teams, either. A year ago, Utah was in a bind over its inability to sell Deron Williams on a long-term extension. The Jazz had to package Williams to the Nets just before the trade deadline. Naturally, Williams? agent is now telling reporters that Williams will not sign an extension with the Nets, either.

Guess where the rumor mill has Williams headed if he does opt out of his contract after this season? The Lakers.

Now, in the real world, the Lakers and Knicks can?t get everybody. (Even more real: they can?t do much to get anybody, particularly the Knicks, because all the legal and financial wrangling of the lockout didn?t result in them getting new ownership or a better roster.)

Also in the real world, teams like the Nets and Clippers wouldn?t be treated by anybody as ?small market? and at a drastic competitive disadvantage?their only disadvantage is their inability to take advantage of where they are. (Save this paragraph in a few years for when Blake Griffin bolts poor, helpless Los Angeles.)

With all that said, though, the power and leverage in the NBA hasn?t seemed to have shifted in any way so far. Players had money taken out of their pockets, but they still have the right and opportunity to take their talents wherever they want when they've earned that contractual right.

And the big-markets teams that want them appear to have no more impediments in getting them now than they did before. If you?re looking for the next superteam, it won?t be in Charlotte, Toronto or Minnesota; the coasts are still your best bets.

Good strategy, NBA. Looks like you changed very little during your five-month blockade?unless you count the bridges you burned.

Source: http://aol.sportingnews.com/nba/story/2011-12-03/so-much-for-balance-nba-players-still-calling-their-shots

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Naked mole rats make deformed, sluggish sperm

Abandon the rat race at your peril. Naked mole rat colonies contain just one sexually active male ? and the lack of competition has left its sperm shrivelled and sluggish.

Liana Maree of the University of the Western Cape in Bellville, South Africa, and colleagues took sperm from captive naked mole rats and subjected them to a battery of tests.

Only 7 per cent of the sperm actually moved, and they swam at around 35 micrometres per second ? possibly the slowest sperm of any mammal.

"The reason they look so ugly and swim so slowly is there is no sperm competition," says Maree. Naked mole rats live in colonies dominated by the queen, who chooses one male at a time to mate with. She suppresses the reproductive instincts of every other male in the colony. Because the chosen male has exclusive mating rights, he can afford to produce sperm that will dawdle on their way to the egg.

"The authors have done a pretty good job of arguing that inbreeding is not driving the sperm degeneration, because the colonies they sourced sperm from were specifically outbred," says Matthew Gage at the University of East Anglia in Norwich, UK. "It just goes to show how very important sperm competition is as an evolutionary force acting on sperm form and function."

"The naked mole rat is actually a very good model for what happens in humans," Maree says. Previous studies have found faster sperm in more promiscuous species. Humans are relatively monogamous, so sperm competition is fairly low and abnormalities are common. Typically, about 60 per cent of human sperm are motile, compared with 95 per cent in more promiscuous species.

Journal reference: BMC Evolutionary Biology, in press

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Young Jeezy On Gucci Mane Rift: 'It Was Nothing'

Jeezy tells 'RapFix Live' the whole thing started because he couldn't perform with Gucc while recovering from throat surgery.
By Rob Markman, with reporting by Sway Calloway

Young Jeezy
Photo: Natasha Chandel/ MTV News

It was all just a misunderstanding. After Young Jeezy appeared on Gucci Mane's 2005 track "Icy" but later refused to perform the record with Gucc, things between the two rappers got tense.

When the Snowman appeared on Wednesday's "RapFix Live," he revealed that what Gucci Mane didn't know was it was Jeezy's secret throat surgery that kept him from performing the record.

"When I met homey, he was just a guy hanging at the studio and he was fan. And I took to him and 'cause I just liked the way he got down, he was always cool, he was always excited," Jeezy said of how he and Gucci first met.

Jeezy — who was the hottest street rapper at the time — agreed to do "Icy" with Gucci Mane and even helped put the record together, he said. But soon after, he lost his voice, so when a request to perform the song came through to Jeezy's people, he declined without giving a reason. "Around that time is when I lost my voice," Jeezy revealed to Sway. "But nobody knew that I lost my voice but, like, maybe four of my homeboys. Def Jam didn't know, nobody knew.

"I think they got offended, but he didn't know that I lost my voice and just had surgery and was laying on a deathbed not knowing whether or not I would be able to speak again."

It is important to note that the two MCs have since called a truce. But before they made a peaceful resolution, Jeezy and Gucci traded subtle and sometimes not-so-subtle barbs on record. The drama even spilled onto the streets. "It just started then and turned into something else," Jeezy said. "I just felt like he was getting disrespectful about the situation because he wasn't being a businessman about it and understanding."

Jeezy, who is set to drop his fourth album, TM 103: Hustlerz Ambition, on December 20, told Sway that he believed the media made it out to be more than it was. "It's over now. But for what it's worth, it was nothing," he said.

In August, Gucci Mane had a similar stance when he sat with Sway on "RapFix Live." "On the strength of [the fact that] anything could have happened between not just me and him [but] between our camps, we just came to a sit-down of just respecting the fact that somebody can get hurt, and it ain't going to be us," Gucci said of the truce. "That's what made us do that."

Don't expect a future collaboration between the former foes, however. "I think we should just stay away from that totally," Jeezy said.

Are you glad Jeezy and Gucci settled things? Let us know in the comments.

Related Videos

• 'RapFix Live' With Young Jeezy And Big K.R.I.T.

Related Artists

• Young Jeezy
• Gucci Mane

Source: http://www.mtv.com/news/articles/1675307/young-jeezy-gucci-mane.jhtml

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Anaheim Ducks fire Carlyle, hire Bruce Boudreau (AP)

ANAHEIM, Calif. ? Randy Carlyle appeared relieved after his Anaheim Ducks snapped a seven-game skid Wednesday night, figuring his talented club had turned a corner.

If only the winningest coach in franchise history had known what was waiting for him around that corner.

Fed up with the Ducks' inexplicably slow start, the club fired the Stanley Cup-winning coach and his staff late Wednesday night. Anaheim swiftly replaced Carlyle with former Washington coach Bruce Boudreau, who was dismissed by the Capitals just two days earlier.

The Ducks made the abrupt moves after beating Montreal 4-1 on Wednesday night for just their third victory in 19 games. Despite the presence of league MVP Corey Perry, captain Ryan Getzlaf, 41-year-old scorer Teemu Selanne and All-Star goalie Jonas Hiller, the Ducks are off to a 7-13-4 start, ahead of only Columbus in the 15-team Western Conference.

"Randy is a terrific head coach, and did a tremendous job for us for six-plus seasons," Anaheim general manager Bob Murray said. "We thank him greatly for his hard work and dedication to our franchise, not the least of which was a Stanley Cup championship. At this time, we simply felt a new voice was needed. Bruce is a proven winner with a great track record, and we are optimistic we can turn this season around under his leadership."

Carlyle coached the Ducks to the franchise's only Stanley Cup title and Pacific Division championship in 2007, but the longtime NHL defenseman struggled to get his talented club's attention this fall after agreeing in August to a three-year contract extension through the 2013-14 season.

After Anaheim's seventh straight defeat last Sunday night, a dispassionate 5-2 loss to Toronto, Carlyle lamented that his players sometimes seemed to be "dead between the ears." He was in a better mood after the Ducks handled the Canadiens, praising their tenacity and his stars' leadership through a tough stretch.

A few minutes later, Carlyle was dismissed from the job he had held since August 2005. Anaheim cleaned house Wednesday night, also firing assistant coaches Dave Farrish and Mike Foligno and video coordinator Joe Trotta.

The Ducks hired Brad Lauer as an assistant coach to Boudreau, and will add another assistant soon.

Carlyle is the fourth coach to be fired in the always-impatient NHL's young season, and the third this week. Paul Maurice was also dismissed on Monday by the Carolina Hurricanes, while Davis Payne was let go by the St. Louis Blues on Nov. 6.

Boudreau, after doing a round of interviews Wednesday morning in which he said the Capitals made the right move by firing him, took a new job less than 72 hours after leaving a remarkably similar situation in Washington, which dropped him Monday after a slow start with a talented roster that's had little recent playoff success.

Boudreau will run the Ducks' practice on Thursday before his formal introduction, and his new players will be in for a major change from the sometimes-crusty Carlyle to the personable Boudreau, nicknamed "Gabby" for his garrulous style. Anaheim hosts Philadelphia on Friday night for Boudreau's debut.

Carlyle was behind Anaheim's bench for many of the 1993 expansion franchise's biggest moments. He had compiled a 273-182-6 record after taking over for Mike Babcock as the seventh head coach in club history.

Carlyle led Anaheim to the postseason in five of his first six seasons, winning more playoff games during that stretch than any coach except Babcock in Detroit. But Anaheim won just one playoff round in the past four years since winning the Cup, losing to fifth-seeded Nashville in the first round last season.

Boudreau led Washington to the last four Southeast Division titles and the 2010 Presidents' Trophy while winning 201 games in just four years on the job, but the Caps' lack of playoff success helped to seal his fate when they slumped following a 7-0 start to this season.

He won the Jack Adams award as the NHL's best coach in 2008, but never got past the second round of the playoffs despite a roster featuring Alex Ovechkin, Alexander Semin and talented supporting casts. Boudreau favors an attacking offensive style that should suit the Ducks' talented forwards, although Carlyle also gave his players plenty of freedom for offensive creativity.

Lauer was promoted from the Ducks' AHL affiliate in Syracuse, where he had been an assistant since July. He spent the previous two seasons on the Ottawa Senators' staff.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/sports/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20111201/ap_on_sp_ho_ne/hkn_ducks_carlyle_fired

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South Sudan's Returning Exiles: Can the Young Country Accommodate them? (Time.com)

It was a blazing Saturday in October, and the crowd had been waiting for hours. Cousins, brothers, wives and daughters stood sweating under a few big mango trees on the banks of the Nile in Juba, South Sudan's new capital. Kids coaxed the unripe fruit out of the branches with sticks, bringing the green orbs to the dirt with a plunk. The hot smell of charcoal wafted out from a makeshift tea stand, where a woman heaped spoons of sugar into small glass cups. At last, the barge appeared, first a dark smudge on the wide, brown river, and soon enough, a teeming, cheering vessel carrying hundreds of South Sudanese on the last leg of their very long journey home.

"Juba!" a man onboard called out from a megaphone. "Juba! We bring you good news!" As the boat pulled into port, passengers stood on the roof and hung over its railings, spotting their relatives onshore and waving wildly across the narrowing gap of water. On land, men yelped and women let out long, high-pitched trills. Somebody unfurled a government banner bearing the portrait President Salva Kiir in his signature black cowboy bearing the slogan: "Return in Safety and Dignity." (See TIME's photoessay, "Independence for Southern Sudan.")

It's a stirring scene that has been playing out for months now in the world's newest nation, as South Sudanese who left the country during the long years of war are coming home. The government estimates four million southerners were displaced both internally and externally during the decades-long civil war. As a result of a 2005 peace deal that ended the north-south fighting and paved the way for the south's secession, the fledgling government promised a home to southerners who wanted to repatriate, an offer that has become particularly appealing to the hundreds of thousands who have been living in the increasingly inhospitable environs of Khartoum. Since October 2010, three months before the south voted to become independent, more than 360,000 southerners have returned from the north by train, bus and barge, most of them bringing everything they owned with them -- and great expectations of a fresh start in the country they had left decades before.

That's a lot of baggage for any government to handle, let alone a months-old administration grappling with building a war-traumatized country nearly from scratch. Getting people back home, a process that has been largely paid for by the International Organization for Migration (IOM), has been complicated, to say the least. Because the government promised that the move would be paid for in full, many returnees, as they're called here, left little but memories behind, arriving with beds, pots, clothes, trunks, armoires, scooters and stacks of plastic chairs in tow. For every barge of returnees that has creaked into Juba, at least one more barge of their belongings has come with it. "I dream at night of luggage falling on my head," laments William Chan Achuil, the chairperson of the South Sudan Relief and Rehabilitation Commission (SSRRC), the government body charged with overseeing the returns. "It has not gone well." (See a video of South Sudan at the polls.)

Flaring tensions between north and south have not helped. This summer, after fighting broke out along the border between Sudanese forces and rebels aligned with the south during the civil war, the movement of people and goods from north to south ground to a near halt. What overland routes were still available passed through the conflict zones and were deemed too dangerous to use. As a result, tens of thousands of returnees -- and their luggage -- have been stuck for months in swelling camps on both sides of the border, waiting to make the two-week trip down the Nile on the crowded barges. In Renk, a remote town in South Sudan where thousands of returnees are waiting for passage, food is scarce and sanitary conditions are poor, with only a few international aid agencies scrambling to try to provide some services to an increasingly frustrated crowd. "The national government has made a political decision to evacuate people from Sudan and bring them south as quickly as possible without guaranteeing the practical consequences of that decision," says Peter Orr, a senior advocate for Refugees International. "Now, they're turning to the humanitarian community and saying, 'You have to help these people.'"

Once they do get home, the afterglow can fade fast. Coming off the barge in Juba, passengers are emotional and enthusiastic, relieved that their months-long wait has ended. But a few paces away from where families reunite with hugs and handshakes, a settlement has sprung up amid the pools of stagnant rainwater, plastic water bottles, feces and garbage. Land is scarce in Juba, and, as in several state capitals, authorities have not been able to secure space for returnees who want to settle near a city rather than go back to the countryside they left decades ago. Instead, returnees to the capital have been instructed to find a place with friends and relatives, but for people like John Soroba, who left for Khartoum 35 years ago, those connections no longer exist. In October, his family and dozens of others had been camped out around the port for weeks, waiting for somebody to tell them where to go. "No transport, no money, no food," Soroba says, brushing his hands together to indicate everything is gone. "Why am I even here?" (SEe why South Sudan's boom is problematic.)

Indeed, finding a place for returnees to call home has become a problem throughout the nation. In Renk, in addition to the thousands who are waiting to get on a barge, another 12,000 to 13,000 southerners have been camped out in the city for months with no intention of leaving, putting pressure on the local government to find a solution to a problem the national government has created. "For the people who didn't leave, you can understand why there is some reluctance to give away land to people coming from the north," says Orr. "It's a very tricky situation." And it's likely to get worse before it gets better. After the south declared independence on July 9, the legal status of southerners living in the north was revoked, and Khartoum gave southerners nine months to either go home or wait and see if their legal status will be renewed at the end of the year. "Between now and December, a lot of returnees will come," says Achuil, the SSRRC chairperson in Juba. "If they find that services are not available, there will be conflict -- over land, over food, over water."

Still, for some, the sheer relief of being home outweighs the problems they face once they get there. At an abandoned aid compound in Bentiu, the capital of Unity state, a group of 470 people had been sharing three small, stuffy huts for over a month in mid-October, waiting to get to their homes nearby. The long, heavy rainy season rendered the dirt roads home impassable, and several deadly landmine explosions in the region in the last few months slowed things down even more. "We have some rations, but we don't have enough," says Cirillo Mayik, one of the elders of the group who moved to Khartoum during the war in 1974. "There's no oil, no lentils, nothing." Still, Mayik says, after years of years of feeling like an outsider in Khartoum, he's happy to back -- come what may. He grabs the branch of a tree he's standing next to and gives it a shake. "Even if I'm not given a home, I'll be given a tree, and I can sit underneath that."

Produced in association with the www.internationalreportingproject.com.

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Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/world/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/time/20111202/wl_time/08599210017300

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Smart changes in New Orleans

New Orleans might look the same, but new key ingredients are paying off

Sam Greenwood / Getty Images

Tight end Jimmy Graham has grown from a goal-line surprise into the best pass-catching tight end in the league.

ANALYSIS

updated 2:13 p.m. ET Nov. 30, 2011

Mike Tanier

The Saints might look the same as they did in Super Bowl XLIV, but there are some major differences.

Sure, Sean Payton is still in the driver?s seat, with his crutches in the passenger side. And the chassis looks the same: Drew Brees, Marques Colston, Will Smith, the offense of a thousand formations and the Gregg Williams defense of a million blitzes. But there has been a lot of redesign under the hood. The Saints are winning with the help of a lot of players who were not around, or who had minor roles, during the team?s Super Bowl run.

Here?s a closer look at some of the new features available only on the 2011 Saints. Some are already well known. Some are less visible. All are making an impact.

Jimmy Graham: Graham is no stranger to fantasy football players. He?s that tight end who mysteriously appeared near the top of the cheat sheets in August, the one your brother-in-law drafted in the fifth round. (?I?ll take this Graham guy, whoever he is.?) Graham got some attention with four touchdowns in the final three games of 2010, but with just 11 catches for 80 yards in those games, it was hard to tell if he was anything more than a red zone flash-in-the-pan.

This season, Graham has grown from a goal-line surprise into the best pass-catching tight end in the league. He had four straight 100-yard games early in the season. He is on pace for 1,392 yards. Most amazingly, he has become the best deep threat for a team with four very good wide receivers. On passes marked ?deep? by the official play-by-play (15 or more yards in the air), Brees and Graham are 17-of-24 for 469 yards and three touchdowns. As Jon Gruden noted in the Monday night game, the 260-pound Graham often runs deep routes to draw coverage so Devery Henderson ? one of the league?s fastest receivers ? can run shorter routes underneath.

The Saints drafted Graham in the third round of the 2010 draft, even though Graham played only one season of football at Miami and caught only 17 passes. Graham focused on basketball in college, and although there?s nothing new about scouting the hardwood for tight end prospects (see Antonio Gates), the Saints showed how it should be done. Their weapon-loaded offense allowed Graham to improve without pressure, and his role as an end-zone mismatch allowed him to contribute before he absorbed the full playbook. Graham is now a focal point of an offense with so many focal points that it can be dizzying to look at.

Jo-Lonn Dunbar: You probably remember the Saints? big fourth-and-1 overtime stop against the Falcons a few weeks ago. You might not remember the play that set it up: on third-and-1, Mike Cox caught a short pass in the flat, but Dunbar delivered a textbook open-field tackle. Cox tried to stretch for the first down, but with his momentum stopped, he could not extend far enough. "The fourth down play never would have had a chance had Dunbar not made such a great play on third down," Gregg Williams said.

Dunbar was a special teams standout for the 2009 Saints, but he was on injured reserve for the Super Bowl. Dunbar started a few games at outside linebacker between injuries last season, but with Johnathan Vilma recovering from knee surgery Dunbar is finally able to play his natural middle linebacker position. It?s a tough job in Williams? system, which features a lot of presnap calls and adjustments. "It didn't take me long to realize how smart he was and how sharp he was. Jo-Lonn Dunbar is smart and he is tough as nails,? Williams said.

Dunbar is second on the Saints with 48 total tackles. He had 10 tackles against the Giants on Monday and forced a fumble, his second of the season. When Vilma returns, Williams will have a dilemma on his hands: the defense has played better with Dunbar in the middle, particularly against the run.

Luckily, Williams? defense has enough looks and formations to keep everyone involved. And finding roles a smart, hard-hitting linebacker who can play multiple positions is the kind of problem most coaches would kill to have.

Brian De La Puente: The Saints took a big risk when they let center Jonathan Goodwin leave as a free agent after the lockout. The only true center on their roster when Goodwin left was Matt Tennant, a former undrafted rookie with little experience. Veteran Olin Kreutz arrived to take Goodwin?s place, but the Saints soon learned what the Bears already knew: Kreutz was a shadow of his former Pro Bowl self. Kreutz retired, leaving a dangerous void in the middle of the Saints offensive line.

Enter De La Puente, a 26-year old ?rookie? who has been involved in 20 roster transaction and zero games during a three-year non-career. De La Puente had two separate stints on the Seahawks' and 49ers' practice squads, and he also had cups of coffee with the Chiefs and Panthers. The former undrafted rookie from California appeared destined for the hinterlands of the CFL or UFL, not a starting job on one of the league?s best offenses.

De La Puente learned enough during his practice squad world tour to make him more game-ready than Tennant, so he took over for Kreutz before the Colts game. He made a few mistakes in his early starts ? the Rams mixed him up a few times in their upset win ? but he has since settled down. Brees has not been sacked in three games, despite facing very good Giants and Falcons pass rushes. De La Puente has committed only one penalty. The center position is especially critical when blocking for Brees, who is barely 6 feet tall. De La Peunte is not only keeping his quarterback upright, but keeping hands out of his face.

Gerald Herbert / AP

Mark Ingram: If De La Puente is the most obscure rookie in the NFL, then Ingram is among the most famous ? a Heisman winner whose face has graced the boxes of video games. Ingram?s numbers (420 yards, four touchdowns, 4.0 yards per carry ) will not win him many Rookie of the Year votes, but he has made a major impact for a Saints team that had to throw shoulder pads on street free agents last season.

The Saints have a three-headed monster at running back, with Pierre Thomas handling all-purpose chores and Darren Sproles playing the speedster role. Ingram?s job is to bang out tough yards in short-yardage situations, and he is good at it. Ingram is 12-for-16 on third and fourth down conversions, including a 5-yard run on fourth-and-3 against the Bears.

Ingram also gets the call frequently in the fourth quarter, when the Saints are trying to sit on the ball. He has carried 37 times for 161 yards and three touchdowns in the fourth quarter this year, usually when the Saints are killing clock and looking for insurance touchdowns.

These are not mind-blowing numbers, but you must remember what life was like before Ingram to understand his importance. Last year, the Saints had to use retreads Julius Jones and LaDell Betts in important roles. Even in 2009, the team offered far too many carries to the likes of Mike Bell and Lynell Hamilton. Ingram has replaced the one huge minus in the Saints offense with a solid plus.

Built for the Future: The Saints are far from a has-been champion trying to saddle up for one more Super Bowl run before Brees, Smith, Vilma and others pass their expiration dates. Graham, Ingram, De La Puente and Dunbar are just part of a young core that also includes defensive backs Malcolm Jenkins and Patrick Robinson and defensive end Cameron Jordan. The Saints are built to be a very good team for several more seasons.

The Saints were upset in the playoffs by the Seahawks last year, partly because they lacked a playmaker at tight end (Graham was hurt), partly because they could not tackle (Dunbar was hurt) and partly because they were counting on fifth stringers at running back (Ingram was in college, everyone else was hurt). Any team expecting to see the same-old Saints in this year?s playoffs will be in for some surprises.

Mike Tanier writes for NBCSports.com and Rotoworld.com and is a senior writer for Football Outsiders.

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Source: http://nbcsports.msnbc.com/id/45495488/ns/sports-nfl/

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