The Saints will complete their visits by the end of the week with the five players they could select with the second overall pick. The one player missing from their top five visitors is Vanderbilt quarterback Jay Cutler.

Several mock drafts have them trading down and taking someone safe like Virginia offensive tackle D'Brickashaw Ferguson. However, wouldn't Vince Young be a great pick for them? So many of their fans are still living in Houston, Young's hometown, since Hurricane Katrina. Plus, the word is new head coach Sean Payton likes Young. 

Excused absence

Chemistry, shemistry.

There were reports out of Dallas last week that maybe Cowboys head coach Bill Parcells doesn't like the fact that Terrell Owens has missed some off-season workouts. The buzzword was that Parcells likes having his players around to build team chemistry.

Well, let's set the record straight.

Parcells knew that T.O. was going to be absent for the first week of off-season work before the receiver signed a contract. And, finally, the entire NFL knows that T.O. is one physical specimen. The guy is never out of shape; his ego is too big to allow even a tiny bit of flab. He's one of the last players to worry about in that regard.

Even when the first story surfaced on T.O., he was seen at Valley Ranch working out. You can take this to the bank: T.O. will get in his mandatory 40 off-season workouts for the Cowboys. Granted, he may not give a hoot about team chemistry, but then very few prima donna receivers do. 

Not No. 1

Tom Condon is a super football agent, but there's no way that he can sell USC quarterback Matt Leinart as the first overall draft choice. Leinart's chance was a year ago, when his numbers and Heisman rep easily would have put him ahead of Utah's Alex Smith with the San Francisco 49ers.

But he returned to USC last season, and now everyone knows that Reggie Bush is the best player in the draft. He will be the No. 1 pick.

Now, the New Orleans Saints can simply sit at the second spot and take Leinart if they want. But why would the Tennessee Titans and New York Jets, who also should be considering selecting a quarterback in the first round, want to give up picks simply to move up to select Leinart?

You don't do that when Vince Young of Texas will be on the board and may have more physical upside than Leinart, whose best attribute is that he's probably more ready to start in the NFL than Young and Vanderbilt's Jay Cutler. 

Still waiting

Seattle owner Paul Allen, the billionaire who rescued the Seahawks in his hometown, continues to wait for head coach Mike Holmgren to sign a three-year extension that was offered at Super Bowl time.

Holmgren is thinking about being a lame-duck coach this season, his final one contractually in Seattle. He remains upset with GM Tim Ruskell over the loss of All-Pro guard Steve Hutchinson. Ruskell promised Holmgren that he would "franchise" Hutchinson and prevent him from leaving. Instead, the Seahawks placed a transition tag on Hutchinson and lost him to the mad-spending Minnesota Vikings.

The key in this entire issue is whether or not Holmgren can get over being let down by Ruskell and his contract negotiator, Mike Reinfeldt, over the loss of Hutchinson.

Whether or not Holmgren wants to be a GM again doesn't shock me, but walking away from a Seattle team that is capable of returning to another Super Bowl is rather ubelievable, even to his long-time assistant coaches. Then, again, Holmgren walked from the Packers when he could have won and won with Brett Favre until he retired.

Commissioner Paul Tagliabue said today that he hoped to have a committee of six to eight owners in place by the end of next week to begin the search for his replacement. Tags also said that he could live with the fact if a successor isn't found by his original deadline of early July.

"We all realize that virtually all of our teams go on vacation between June 15 and the first few weeks of July," he said.New England owner Bob Kraft said that the committee would then hire a head-hunting agency to expand the search for a next commissioner. Kraft said it was suggested that the head-hunting group would interview all 32 owners on their preferences and also what traits they view as desirable in the next commissioner.

Kraft said that all the owners should be included in this search because it didn't happen in 1989 when Tagliabue was finally elected after the committee initially favored the late Jim Finks, then GM of the New Orleans Saints.

Celebration time is over

As expected, excessive end zone celebrations in which props are used or when players fall to the ground will be penalized next season. Touchdown scorers will still be allowed to spike the ball and dunk over the crossbar without fear of a penalty, but the league will be cracking down on the expressive and creative routines celebrated by such receivers as Chad Johnson, Steve Smith and Terrell Owens over the years.

A failure to communicate?

The proposal to allow a defensive player to have a radio helmet in order to receive verbal instructions from the sidelines like the quarterback currently receives from the sideline playcaller was tabled for further review. Titans coach Jeff Fisher, co-chairman of the competition committee, said one of the problems is that coaches may want a defensive player other than a linebacker to have the radio helmet. Plus, with defensive personnel groupings on third down and in obvious passing downs constantly changing, Fisher and others would want the radio helmet to be rotated among defensive players.

Refs not subject to replay

The vote was virtually unanimous against the Tampa Bay proposal that questionable officiating calls be eligible to be reviewed by instant replay. Also, the league has reduced the referees' ability to review replays of challenged plays from 90 to 60 seconds. The 60 seconds will begin once the plays are shown to the referee, who is sticking his head into a hooded monitor on the sidelines. There was even a discussion of telling the network production crews when the replays begin so that a clock on the TV screen would have the correct countdown information.

Before he officially retires, NFL Commissioner Paul Tagliabue would like to put the Los Angeles Coliseum and a possible new stadium in Anaheim on a fast-track to be the future home of a NFL franchise. Tagliabue announced today that prior to the owners' next meeting, schedule for Denver in May, that both sites be prepared to present viable proposals to the 32-member franchise.

Although adding a 33rd franchise - an expansion team - probably would be more appealing to Los Angeles-area fans, it seems more likely that a relocated franchise will end up in Anaheim or Los Angeles. There continues to be speculation that the San Diego Chargers could move to Anaheim and that possibly the Jacksonville Jaguars to Los Angeles. Even though Jaguars owner Wayne Weaver voted for the new collective bargaining agreement, many in the league believe he definitely will lose money this season based on the $102 million salary cap. The Saints will remain in New Orleans for two more seasons, but who knows whether or not that hurricane-devastated city will be able to support an NFL team like it used to?

Hunt's happy

One of the happiest owners here today was Lamar Hunt of the Kansas City Chiefs. Hunt, since his days in the AFL, has been asking for a Thanksgiving Day home game and the league announced that the Chiefs will host the Denver Broncos on the cable NFL Network at 8 p.m. ET, following the traditional games in Detroit and Dallas. Before the Chiefs merged with the NFL, they played on Thanksgiving in the American Football League. Since the merger, Hunt has argued that the Thanksgiving Day games should have been rotated among member clubs, a proposal that Detroit and Dallas has fought at every turn.

USC Pro Day will be a hit

After these meetings, most of the GMs and personnel directors will leave here for Los Angeles to attend USC's Pro Day on Sunday. It will be the first time that first-round talent like Reggie Bush, LenDale White and Matt Leinart will run and throw for scouts during the draft process. None of them ran at the National Scouting Combine in Indianapolis last month. Houston is still considering Bush as the draft's first overall choice. Scouts are also curious to see whether or not USC TE Dominique Byrd competes in certain drills. White was also about 15 pounds overweight at Indy.

Keyshawn will fit in with Panthers

Keyshawn Johnson gives Carolina a bonafide threat opposite Steve Smith.

The Carolina Panthers actually believed that WR Keyshawn Johnson was going to end up on the FOX pregame show as a replacement for James Brown if they didn't give him a $5 million signing bonus. Still, Keyshawn is the perfect No. 2 receiver to Steve Smith with maybe speedy Drew Carter as a No. 3. Keary Colbert wasn't productive this past season for the Panthers and veteran Ricky Proehl seems to be the odd-man out.

More picks for champs

The Steelers won the Super Bowl and they were also big winners with three compensatory draft selections in next month's draft. The Steelers picked up three extra draft choices for past free-agency losses. They received two extra picks at the both of the fourth round, Nos. 131 and 133 and also a fifth-round pick, No. 167. The New York Jets were the only team to be compensated with a third-round pick, No. 97 overall.

Cowboys reward Glenn

The Dallas Cowboys must have felt some bad vibes from veteran WR Terry Glenn after they signed Terrell Owens to a one-year, $10 million deal. (Three years, $25 million is the total T.O. package). The Cowboys gave Glenn a new extension on Monday, giving him $10 million over the next two seasons. Glenn was scheduled to earn $2 million this season and then be eligible for free-agency in 2007.