While the New Orleans Saints played their first game of the season in Louisiana on Sunday, state officials scrambled to make sure it wouldn't be one of the last. NFL commissioner Paul Tagliabue said he was committed to keeping the team in New Orleans after meeting with team owner Tom Benson, Gov. Kathleen Blanco, and other officials. ``The Saints are Louisiana's team and have been since the late '60s when my predecessor Pete Rozelle welcomed them to the league as New Orleans' team and Louisiana's team,'' Tagliabue said. ``Our focus continues to be on having the Saints in Louisiana.'' The Saints moved operations to San Antonio after Hurricane Katrina devastated the city and the Louisiana Superdome. San Antonio Mayor Phil Hardberger has lobbied hard to keep the Saints there, and believes Benson wants to stay in the city as well. Tagliabue pointed out that under NFL guidelines, Benson is prohibited to talk about moving his team during the season. Still, Benson has made some moves that appear to back up Hardberger's contention and has come under fire from Saints fans.

The Washington Post reports the NFL will consider relocating the Saints to Los Angeles if New Orleans is unable to recover from Hurricane Katrina. The newspaper cites three sources familiar with the league's deliberation on the matter. The Saints have been based in San Antonio since they were forced out of the Crescent City by the damaging August hurricane. But the sources say the league has no interest in the Texas city as a permanent home for the club. Los Angeles is the second-largest television market in the country and has been without an NFL team since the Raiders moved back to Oakland after the 1994 season.

Saints owner Tom Benson declared this week that nothing will be decided on the franchise's future until after the season. But ESPN's Chris Mortensen reports that, based on information from key league sources, the team has probably played its last game in New Orleans. According to Mortensen, San Antonio is a likely home for 2006 and Los Angeles is the preferred destination beyond that. The NFL could still include New Orleans as a Super Bowl site when the city is reconstructed, and expansion might even be a possibility, but that's 10 to 15 years away. If the Saints relocate to San Antonio or elsewhere, New Orleans has only a slim chance of ever seeing another NFL team, according to a major sports consultant. Marc Ganis of SportsCorp Ltd. in Chicago served as a consultant to Cleveland in 1996 when that city's NFL team moved to Baltimore and the NFL guaranteed Cleveland a new team and allowed the city to keep the Browns' logos, colors and nickname. Earlier this week, New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin said he wanted the "Cleveland deal" if the team relocates. Gov. Kathleen Blanco said she supported Nagin on such a plan.

Louisiana Superdome officials said Thursday that the stadium should be largely cleaned up from Hurricane Katrina and ready for the New Orleans Saints to play at least some of their games there in 2006. However, the announcement came as San Antonio officials said they were working Saints owner Tom Benson to keep the team in Texas. The state must also respond to the team's assertions that its state-owned practice facility has been rendered unusable by damages caused by federal agencies in the weeks following the Aug. 29 storm. The Superdome, severely damaged by high winds, should have a temporary roof in place within 10 days, said Doug Thornton, regional vice president for SMG, which manages the Superdome. An environmental assessment of its interior -- damaged by rainfall through holes in the roof and its use as a shelter for evacuees -- should be finished by Dec. 1, he said. "We're working to make the Dome ready for the next season," Thornton said at a meeting of the Louisiana Stadium and Exposition District Commission, the state board that oversees the Superdome.

A day after Saints owner Tom Benson announced plans that he is working with San Antonio officials to permanently keep the NFL team in Texas, New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin publicly announced his dismay over the intended move. "We want our Saints, we may not want the owner back," Nagin said while attending the reopening of Cafe Du Monde in the French Quarter "I'm ready to go to the NFL and to [commissioner Paul] Tagliabue and say, 'Give us the Cleveland plan,'" Nagin added, referring to the league awarding Cleveland an expansion team almost immediately after the Browns moved to Baltimore after the 1995 season. "Whatever the Saints want to do, you let them leave, but they can't take our logo, they can't take our name, and you give us a promise to give us a franchise when this city's back."

Mayor Phil Hardberger reiterated his resolve to bring the Saints to San Antonio permanently, saying he wanted to close the deal before next season begins. Hardberger, while part of a sellout crowd to watch the Saints-Falcons game Sunday in San Antonio, said Saints owner Tom Benson agreed to serious talks with him, probably at the end of this season. Benson "understands that we will sit down and talk," Hardberger said in a story in Monday's San Antonio Express-News. "That is his desire as well. I'm pretty comfortable in saying he wants to be here." Attempts to reach Benson by telephone Monday were not successful. Greg Bensel, team spokesman, declined comment. The Saints are under contract to play at the Louisiana Superdome through 2010 but certain provisions allow them to opt out before a Nov. 29 deadline.

New Orleans Saints executive vice president Arnold Fielkow, until recently regarded as one of owner Tom Benson's most influential confidants and the man most responsible for negotiating a $186.5 million subsidies package from the state of Louisiana, was removed from his job on Monday. When several media outlets suggested after Katrina that Benson might never return his team to New Orleans and would seek relocation alternatives, Fielkow became a very outspoken advocate for not abandoning the Gulf Coast. Sources told ESPN.com at the time that, while many in the organization assumed Benson was merely reacting out of frustration and that his words were hasty and ill-conceived, Fielkow legitimately feared the Saints owner would pull up stakes.

Moving quickly to bolster a tailback position severely weakened by the season-ending knee injury suffered on Sunday by star Deuce McAllister, the New Orleans Saints acquired Jesse Chatman in a trade with the Miami Dolphins, ESPN.com has learned. The Dolphins will receive a conditional seventh-round pick in the 2006 draft. The acquisition of Chatman, a four-year veteran who spent the first three seasons of his career with the San Diego Chargers, came as the Saints were reeling from the loss of their running game workhorse and the offensive centerpiece. New Orleans spoke with several teams on Monday about potential deals, with some of those talks initiated by the other franchises, as the Saints sought a replacement running back.

FOXSports.com has learned that the initial test on Pro Bowl RB Deuce McAllister has shown a torn ACL, meaning McAlister will miss the rest of this season. New Orleans star running back Deuce McAllister, a consensus first-round fantasy draft pick, will likely miss the rest of the season with a torn ACL. His loss deals a harsh blow to McAllister's fantasy owners. Full Story McAllister limped off the field with approximately seven minutes remaining in the third quarter of Sunday's horrific 52-3 loss to Green Bay after twisting his right knee at the end of a screen pass. Initial x-rays were negative but the team didn't make a final prognosis until further examination today. The Saints will get McAllister a second opinion before deciding on definitive season-ending surgery but all indications are that the injury will need to be repaired surgically.

The New Orleans Saints will come to San Antonio for their first "home" game this Sunday to face the opposing Buffalo Bills. The Alamo Dome should be decked out like the Superdome and filled with pro-Saints fans.