METAIRIE, La. – After three years of this, you’d think Kenny Phillips has gotten used to the highs and lows of trying to crack an NFL roster. But the on-again, off-again New Orleans Saints safety admitted it wasn’t any easier to deal with being cut last week.
“When I first got that call, I was numb. It was, ‘I can’t believe this happened again,’” said Phillips, who finally appears poised to play in his first NFL game since 2012 on Sunday when the Saints host the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
Phillips, 28, made the Saints’ original 53-man roster on Sept. 5, was cut on Sept. 6 then was re-signed this week after safety Rafael Bush went down with a season-ending chest injury.
“I was actually OK. But that first day back home, I went to the park to work out, and I was just, ‘I can’t believe I’m here again. I already did two years of this,’” Phillips said. “So it was a little bit of a down time, but my family kept me lifted. And a couple days later they gave me the call and I was on my way back. ... It's truly a blessing."
Phillips said the Saints actually called him late last week and let him know they planned to bring him back even before Bush was injured. He most likely had to wait an extra week so his contract wouldn’t be fully guaranteed for the full season.
But now that Bush is injured and safety Jairus Byrd still isn’t back from his own lingering knee injury, Phillips might even wind up starting for the Saints at free safety on Sunday.
“Fortunately Phillips was just here and was just in the swing of things with regards to what we’re doing,” Saints coach Sean Payton said. “Two weeks ago vs. Green Bay [in the preseason] he was playing a bunch of snaps.”
Former Saints cornerback Jabari Greer, who now works as an analyst for the SEC Network, said he was very impressed by what he saw from Phillips this summer and was surprised when the Saints let him go.
Phillips said he was surprised, too. But the former first-round draft pick who spent his first five years with the New York Giants before his career was derailed by knee and quadriceps injuries said he “kept the faith.”
“You never know. Injuries, anything can happen, or they can just change their mind,” Phillips said. “So I just have to come out here, work hard and be productive, and hopefully I can make this my home.”
Another veteran trying to make a similar comeback – running back Tim Hightower – is still stuck on the same transaction yo-yo.
Hightower, who hasn’t played in a NFL game since tearing his ACL in 2011, was cut by the Saints on Saturday, re-signed on Monday and released again on Tuesday.
Payton explained that the Saints decided they wanted to have an extra receiver in Joseph Morgan this week instead of Hightower. But Payton said he doesn’t think it’s the end of the line for the 29-year-old Hightower.
“Tim and I have talked, shoot, almost every other day,” Payton said. “All last week our plan was going to be what we did. He’s a guy that I thought had a real good training camp. And I think that he’s still got more gas left in his tank. Right now, it was just in our best interest to flip that around and sign the receiver. We’ll just kind of handle it week to week here.”
