Dan Morgan Retires ... Again

Perhaps the Saints should stop looking at damaged goods to fix their weakside linebacker position?

In 2006, they brought in Anthony Simmons, a former Pro Bowler, to play there. It didn't matter that Simmons missed most of '04 and all of '05 with injury; he was supposedly healthy and low-risk/high-reward. He retired before his first game as a Saint ever came.

In '08, they brought in Dan Morgan, a former Pro Bowler. It didn't matter that Morgan had a list of concussions that would make Steve Young commiserate, as well as a partially torn Achilles tendon, the collaborative effects of which forced him to miss almost all of '06 and '07. He was supposedly healthy and low-risk/high-reward. He retired before his first game as a Saint ever came.

Morgan then unretired earlier this year and claimed that the Saints, who still had his rights, were getting a healthy and motivated player. On Monday, he retired. Again.

While Morgan was never considered a savior for the New Orleans defense (in fact, he was never considered a starter), he was seen as a player who, if healthy, could regain some of his previous luster and push the unspectacular Scott Shanle for starter's snaps. After giving it a go with New Orleans in the '08 offseason, Morgan had decided that he still hadn't recovered from the injuries that caused him to miss all but four games in his last two seasons in Carolina.

No harm; he thought he could come back and couldn't. It happens. Enjoy retirement, Dan.

But to come back again this offseason and claim complete health and reinvigoration? Seems a little silly now, seeing as Morgan barely made it to June before a calf injury in Saints minicamp made him realize that, while he may have recovered from the injuries that plagued him in the past, he cannot escape the truth about the body he was born to -- one that was only suitable to handle a certain amount of cumulative damage and has completely broken down since reaching that saturation point.


Yes, you may have fixed the brakes, but when you've got a beat-up ride with 150,000 miles on it, you're merely treating a symptom of an inevitable fate -- the car's done, as Morgan has been. For a while now.

So Shanle breathes another sigh of relief; he's survived, yet again, the "competition" of a perhaps more talented yet eroded player, as he's now got second-year seventh-rounder Jo-Lonn Dunbar and undrafted free agent Jonathan Casillas to challenge him this year. One of those players might wind up pulling it off, but Shanle's chances of remaining the starter are greatly increased.

As for Morgan, his agent Drew Rosenhaus says that he wants to spend more time on his restaurant business in Charlotte and with his family, that his decision this time is "final."

Of course it is, because his body made it for him. In fact, it was a decision his body made three years ago. The only real "final" here is that Morgan "finally" decided to listen to what it was telling him.

Meanwhile, here's hoping the Saints "finally" make a concerted effort to get talent at the position, instead of being bitten once again. What's the cliche say about being fooled three times?