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Filed under: Saints, NFC South, NFL Free Agency

Pierre Thomas still hasn’t been able to coax the lucrative long-term deal he wants out of the Saints, but the running back did finally sign his restricted free-agent tender, according to multiple reports. Thomas will earn a little less than $1.7 million in 2010.

That number’s much lower than what Thomas was hoping — and still is hoping — to land from New Orleans. The Times-Picayune reported last week that the Saints‘ initial offer to Thomas was for four years and $11 million, light years away from what Thomas was said to want — something in the vicinity of the six-year, $44.8 million deal Steven Jackson recently signed in St. Louis.

Thomas’ agent, Lamont Smith, disputed that his client’s demands were that high.

“We’re not asking for Steven Jackson money, ” Smith told the Times-Picayune. “We just want a fair deal.”

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Filed under: Ravens, Saints, NFL Training Camp, NFL Notebook

Here’s what’s happening around the National Football League on Monday, June 14, 2010:

o. Fullback Heath Evans is back with the Saints, the knee surgery that prematurely ended his season last year nothing more than a distant memory, Nola.com reported.

Evans tore the ACL in his right knee in New Orleans’ 46-34 victory over the Dolphins on Oct. 25 and underwent surgery four days later.

He has participated in all of the the team’s off-season activities, albeit on a limited scale.

“First time being injured, you never really know what to expect,” he told Nola.com. “Every day is a little different. My knee’s to the point where you can’t really hurt it. You’ve just got to kind of break through all the not so fun stuff, so that’s kind of where I’m at.”

Barring a setback, Evans and the Saints expect the veteran to be near full speed by the time the team opens training camp on July 31.

“Certainly we’ll feel like he’ll be ready for training camp, ” coach Sean Payton said. “We just have to monitor how many snaps in training camp, how many two-a-day practices. We’ll probably just limit him to one practice a day during that time.”

o. Another player on the mend is second-year Ravens safety Haruki Nakamura, the Baltimore Sun reported.

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Filed under: NFL Free Agency, NFL Analysis

As the 2010 NFL season nears, FanHouse will take a weekly look at the coaches, players and issues that promise to loom large. Read Previous Topics

This very unique — some might even call it unfair — NFL free-agency period is about to hit another mile marker.

The deadline for restricted free agents to sign the one-year tender offers assigned back in February is 12:01 a.m. on June 15. Failure to sign the tender means teams can exercise an option to reduce their one-year salary offers to those players.

Take the case of New Orleans tailback Pierre Thomas, an instrumental performer in helping the Saints to a Super Bowl title six months ago. He is a fourth-year RFA who was tendered at the standard second-round price of $1.759 million. If he does not sign, the Saints can drop that number to 110 percent of his base salary for 2010 — or in the neighborhood of $500,000.

Thomas, of course, wants a long-term extension in excess of $40 million, with a nice chunk guaranteed. Given the labor landscape, with owners basically laying low amid the CBA uncertainty, Thomas realistically is looking at two options — signing the tender now or holding out — and neither comes with seven zeroes.

In other words, Thomas will either be mad or really mad.

Thomas was one of more than 200 free agents victimized by bad timing. Under normal circumstances, Thomas would have gotten a fat new deal from the Saints or perhaps been slapped with a “franchise” or “transition” tag and made a one-year deal in excess of $6 million, or been allowed to wade into the free agent waters and sign elsewhere for big cas.

But these aren’t normal circumstances, are they?

Here are 10 RFAs from the Class of ’10 that would have been rolling in high (and very green) cotton in a normal year of free agency.

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