What goes into joining a practice squad? Ask these Saints

John Leglue had been with the Broncos since they signed him as an undrafted rookie free agent in May.

NEW ORLEANS — His mother planned to stay in Denver long enough to help her 6-foot-7 offensive line-playing son find a new place to live.

John Leglue had been with the Broncos since they signed him as an undrafted rookie free agent in May. He came home for a little bit in the summer and then returned for the start of training camp late in July, when the Broncos put him up in a hotel.

But with the preseason about to conclude Thursday, Leglue’s mother arrived with her husband and enough family and friends for John to need 16 tickets for the game against the Cardinals.

That night, he played the final 26 snaps on offense, coming onto the field in the second series of the third quarter.

The next day, Leglue made it through the first round of roster cuts. But another day was coming. That’s when, while watching College GameDay alone in his hotel room, Leglue got a phone call from an unfamiliar number with a California area code.

Leglue learned during the pre-draft process that calls don't always come from the area code of the team location. Cell phones are the reason.

The voice of the person's name Leglue didn't remember told him to bring his team-issued iPad to the team facility. There, another team official said they'd try to bring him back on practice squad if they could, but that offer never materialized.

Suddenly, Leglue was out of a job.

This is part of finding a way onto a 10-man NFL team practice squad. There is no job security, no matter how much you pretend there is.

"Super stressful," was how Leglue characterized a period of time that ultimately brought him to the New Orleans Saints and their practice squad. “My parents never went through something like that. My girlfriend is freaking out. They had no idea how the business worked.”

In order to begin the season on a practice squad, you must first be unemployed for the span of close to 24 hours, a discomforting thought for many young players trying to make it.

First, they're with a team for the better part of five months after being signed as undrafted rookies out of college. They go through weeks of conditioning, playbook study and then training camp. All to be let go en masse just before the season begins — close to 1,200 of them league wide.

That afternoon, Leglue, 23, had lunch at a nearby steak restaurant with Ja'Wuan James and Elijah Wilkinson, a pair of starting offensive tackles for the Broncos. They said their good-byes. He went to dinner that night with family.

Then he waited.

The uncertainty is the hardest part.

For Dan Arnold, a Saints tight end for the last two seasons, the wait included a Star Wars movie marathon and a few episodes of Friday Night Lights. He could have joined another team's practice squad, he said, but he never seriously considered the other offer.

"When you have those guys who have a vision for you and believe in you a little bit," Arnold said in reference to coach Sean Payton and position coach Dan Campbell, "it makes it very easy to stay."

For Taquan Mizzell, a running back converted to a wideout by the Bears, the wait meant accepting the Saints offer to move back to playing running back, something the former Virginia standout did well enough in high school for Rivals to rank him No. 1 in the 2013 class among all-purpose backs. Alvin Kamara was No. 2.

Mizzell “loved Chicago,” he said, which made joining the Saints “a tough decision.”

For Lil'Jordan Humphrey, the decision to stay in New Orleans, where he spent the offeseason and training camp as an undrafted rookie out of Texas, was a no-brainer.

"Why not be in a place like this?" he said.

Fortunately for Leglue, multiple teams offered him spots on their practice squads, he said. So the choice became his.

A lifelong Saints fan and an admirer of the current offensive line unit that ranks among the best in the league, the decision became an easy one. If he gets called up to a 53-man roster, the drive to a game will be short for whatever family he has living in his Alexandria, Louisiana, home town.

He decided on the Saints Sunday afternoon. This put him back in the city where he played college football for five seasons at Tulane University, the last two as an every-game starter. Leglue boarded a Southwest flight that night, coincidentally the same flight his mother booked her rescheduled flight.

He met his new teammates Monday. By Tuesday, he was with his mother so she could help him do what she planned all along: find a new place to live. Only this time, he was back home in New Orleans.