Khalif Barnes keeps showing up on the Saints’ transaction wire, but he also keeps returning. The Saints have listed the veteran offensive lineman in their transactions 11 times the past 10 months.
“It was unfamiliar territory, but, as crazy as it sounds, I knew they weren’t really letting me go,” Barnes said, via Josh Katzenstein of the New Orleans Time-Picayune. “It was just their demeanor and how they would do it.
“It was a weird sense of loyalty on both sides.”
Barnes, a second-round pick of the Jaguars in 2005, played four seasons in Jacksonville and seven in Oakland with 117 career starts. He spent a few days with the Saints last season but never played. Barnes went from 358 pounds when he tried out for the Saints last August to 315 pounds for a tryout at the Saints’ rookie minicamp last month.
It was Barnes’ first rookie minicamp since 2005.
Barnes, 35, will compete to fill in for left tackle Terron Armstead, who is expected to miss at least the first six games of the regular season after shoulder surgery. For Barnes, just making the active roster will prove an accomplishment after seeing his name on the waiver wire so many times.