METAIRIE, La. -- There will come a day when the New Orleans Saints can no longer count on 11th-year veterans Jahri Evans and Zach Strief on the right side of their offensive line.
Shoot, the Saints have tried to get rid of them for the past two years, first drafting Andrus Peat in the first round in 2015 as a potential replacement for Strief, then cutting Evans in February in a salary-cap move.
But Peat couldn’t beat out Strief at right tackle. And the Saints re-signed Evans in September when they couldn’t find anyone better at right guard.
And now the two of them -- whom quarterback Drew Brees likened to “an old married couple” -- are playing some of their best football in years for the Saints’ No. 1-ranked offense.
Coach Sean Payton said last month he thinks Strief is “having one of the better years of his career.”
And Payton admitted Thursday that if the Saints knew Evans would play this well and stay this healthy, they never would have let the six-time Pro Bowler go in February, when he was due $4.9 million in salary and bonuses.
“Knowing now what we’re getting from him, if I knew that back then, he’d have been going through our minicamp, training camp,” Payton said of Evans, who signed with the Seattle Seahawks in August but was released when they decided to go with younger backups. Evans then re-signed with New Orleans for one year and $1 million.
Health has been the biggest positive for Evans after he missed five games in 2015 with knee and ankle issues, including an arthroscopic knee surgery in the middle of the season.
To help with that, Evans said he shed 15-20 pounds to get down to 310-315,the lightest he has ever been in his career. Payton said that lighter weight is what has stood out most about Evans this season.
“I’m playing pretty well, man, I feel pretty good,” said Evans, adding that he never doubted his ability to play at this level as much as other teams seemed to when he hit the free-agent market.
Evans visited with the Buffalo Bills and San Francisco 49ers but said he met with general skepticism overall.
“I mean, I didn’t really have a serious injury [last season]. But I guess being 33, it was serious to more people than it was to me. But that’s just how the league is, man,” said Evans, who said he always thought he would play this year; it was just a matter of getting the right price and the right team.
He wound up settling for less to come back to New Orleans.
Now the question remains the same as it has for the past year or two: Could this possibly be the final game in a Saints uniform for Evans or Strief on Sunday at the Atlanta Falcons?
They are two of the Saints’ three longest-tenured players, having both arrived in the 2006 draft class (Evans in Round 4, Strief in Round 7), the same year Brees arrived in free agency. Safety Roman Harper also arrived in that remarkable 2006 draft class, in Round 2, but he left for two years to play for the Carolina Panthers before coming back this season.
Both Evans and Strief were noncommittal when asked about their futures.
Evans will be a free agent again in 2017. Strief is signed through 2018. But both players said they plan on some down [time] and to see how they feel -- and how the Saints feel about -- before deciding if they’re ready to go all-in again for Year No. 12.
“Who knows what the future has in store,” Evans said. “I’ll probably just take some time off like I do and get out the country for a little bit, like I do, and revisit it later.”
“I don’t think it’s a matter of, ‘Am I able?’ It’s, ‘Do I want to start that carousel of a year over again?’” Strief said. “I don’t want to play until the wheels fall off. I don’t want to have a year where I have to deal with criticism constantly and have a bad year for my team and not be able to contribute. I just don’t want to get to that point.”
Luckily for the Saints, both players' 33-year-old wheels remain intact, and their 11-year “marriage” is still going strong.
Both Evans and Strief laughed at Brees’ "old married couple" comment ... then both reluctantly agreed with it.
“It’s probably [fair], honestly,” Strief said. “Jah’s the eternal optimist, and I’m the eternal pessimist. Jah keeps me straight, and I convince Jah sometimes that it’s not all rainbows.”
“You know, it’s very rare that you play that many games next to one person,” Evans said. “And we’ve been through a lot on and off the field. And just living life, growing in the game has been awesome.”
