Published: October 20, 2008 10:30 pm         

North grad Weatherford cut by Saints

Punter released before team heads to London

The New Orleans Saints cut former Terre Haute North punter Steve Weatherford on Sunday after the team’s 30-7 loss to the Carolina Panthers. Weatherford averaged 35.4 yard gross and 30.2 yards net against Carolina.

New Orleans signed former New York Jets punter Ben Graham, who accompanied the team to London for this week’s game with the San Diego Chargers.

According to the Biloxi Sun-Herald, Saints coach Sean Payton said that the reason he decided to tell Weatherford of the move right after the game was so that he wouldn’t have to make the flight to England.

“It’s always difficult to cut a player that you’ve had for a while and to release a player like Steve,” he said during a Monday press conference in London.

“He came here as a rookie in [2006] with us, but I just think that in the end it became a challenge with consistency. We just felt like it hadn’t gotten any better and it had actually dropped off

“Hopefully he’s able to land somewhere, but it was something that we did discuss prior to the game. From a timing standpoint, that’s always the biggest challenge. Again, we felt like we didn’t have the consistency that we wanted yesterday, but it wasn’t just one game. The evaluation was more than just one game.”

“One of the challenges of playing here during a normal work week — which this is — is any type of roster move,” the former Eastern Illinois quarterback added. “Any type of transaction involves the potential player flying in with a passport.

“Things that you would normally do at home maybe on a Tuesday or a Wednesday at the spur of the moment becomes a little more planned here. I just felt it was the right thing to do rather than fly Steve over here and then turn around and send him back.”