Saints re-sign G/T Patrick Omameh

New Orleans Saints Executive Vice President/General Manager Mickey Loomis announced Thursday that the club has re-signed guard/tackle Patrick Omameh.

Omameh, 6-4, 327, originally was signed by the San Francisco 49ers as an undrafted free agent in 2013 out of the University of Michigan.

The Columbus, Ohio native has played in 81 career regular season games with 57 starts for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (2014), Chicago Bears (2015), Jacksonville Jaguars (2016-18), New York Giants (2018) and Saints (2019).

Omameh signed with New Orleans at the start of training camp in 2019 and appeared in 14 regular season games with one start. Omameh provided valuable depth at both the guard and tackle positions as well as on special teams, starting the team’s Thanksgiving night win at Atlanta at left tackle and also playing the position in two other contests.

New Orleans Saints Guard/Tackle Patrick Omameh
Zoom Availability with Local Media
Friday, May 15, 2020

What made you decide to want to come back and join the saints?
“I think the resume kind of speaks for itself with regards to the organization. It’s a winning pedigree degree that I think anybody would want to be a part of and the way last season ended and what we have in front of us for this year, I think anybody would jump at the opportunity to try to get on board with what we’ve got going on.”

That was going to be kind of my follow up question was how much did your experience last year kind of influence your decision and really make you want to be a part of it?
“I don’t think you’ll find too many guys who have had the opportunity to experience that culture, the organization, that locker room and I wanted to have a chance to return to something like that. It didn’t really take too much thinking to understand that this was something that I’d like the opportunity (to be a part of).

Did you learn things about yourself last season just being with your team and the role you occupied?
“Yeah, I think every season when you have the opportunity to play in this league you’re going to learn more and more about yourself. Just who you are as a teammate. I feel like it’s something that continues to evolve throughout your career. I take great pride in being somebody who my teammates would describe as a good teammate, being somebody that can be counted on when needed to, being supportive when you need to. I feel like I’ve evolved in all those roles over the course of the season.”

With the Saints being your sixth team, was there just like a desire for you to just kind of get to one place and stick there and stay for a while?
“It’s not bad getting an opportunity to have some familiarity with faces and concepts and schemes. It’s definitely not something that I would complain about.”

Just knowing your story with your roots and everything, when you were a kid, did you think about like embarking on like an eight-year NFL career that took you all across the country and stuff like that?
“If you would’ve told him a young me that this would be something that I have the opportunity to do it, no chance that I would believe that. It’s been a blessing. It has been a journey. To have opportunities to do things I never dreamed of. It’s just something that every day I count my blessings.”

You’re a guy who obviously has played a lot of football, started a lot of games. What’s the difference when you’re kind of approaching games, knowing you’re going to be maybe the six offensive linemen or kind of filling in for somebody who’s hurt, how does that role change things for you?
“It kind of changes your preparation. You have to be a lot more prepared to do whatever is asked of you. It’s a never guaranteed that you’re going to go in and play a particular position or line up against one particular opponent. So you’ve kind of got to vary your preparation a little bit more just for whatever situation may pop up and when you’re thrown in the fire, be ready to get the job done.”

What’d you think of them taking another Michigan guy with the first rounder this year in Cesar Ruiz?
I feel like it’s a step towards balance because there’s so many (Ohio State) Buckeyes. We’re just outnumbered. At least now I’ll have somebody to have my back when those debates inevitably pop up in the locker room. It’s not all the way balanced yet, but two’s better than one. So I’ll take it.”

Thinking along that line, looking back, how does the guy from Columbus end up in Ann Arbor?
“Over the course of the recruitment journey, towards the end of my recruitment journey actually, Michigan came on board and I took a visit and fell in love and kind of took off from there. It happens. I’m not the only Columbus Wolverine. There was a couple to follow me and there were a couple before. So there are not too many of us, but we’re out there.”

I’ve seen some stuff about how you had chances to go to like some Ivy league schools like MIT and stuff like that. Just out of curiosity, what did you end up studying at Michigan and do you have any sort of post career plans or that end?
“I ended up at the end of my career studying communications and sociology. Honestly, post-career it’s hard to say. I feel like it’s been so long. All my eggs have been in the football basket, so I haven’t had much of an opportunity to really sit down and kind of hash that out. But, hopefully I’ll be able to find something that I enjoy as much as playing the game something that really just continues to peak my interest.”

Just from a football standpoint, being here, obviously the Saints have a lot of really good lineman on this team. Do you feel like you get a sort of football education being around guys like Terron Armstead, Andrus Peat, Ryan Ramczyk, that sort of thing?
“Yeah, I’ve mentioned it before. Last year was my first year in my career primarily being a tackle attack and having two guys like Terron Armstead and Ryan Ryan Ramczyk who aren’t exactly at the bottom of the totem pole when it comes to playing that position, it’s not a bad thing, not a bad situation, being able to take a few pointers from guys like that. I’d consider myself blessed in that regard.”

You touched on kind of playing tackle primarily. Do you feel like that kind of made you more valuable to the Saints just with the way they like to interchange the line and kind of have everybody be versatile at that position?
“Yeah, I believe most people would probably say with regards to offensive line play is that if you’re not a starting, you’ve got to be able to play multiple positions. Being able to move around inside and outside is definitely something that I’m sure everybody would find some value in when trying to fill out their offensive line.”