The De La Salle football coaching staff will have a former New Orleans Saints player in 2019.
Robert Meachem, who played on the Saints’ Super Bowl winning team in 2009, is set to join the Cavaliers as a wide receivers coach, De La Salle coach Ryan Manale said Thursday (Feb. 28).
Meachem joined the Saints as the No. 27 overall selection in the 2007 NFL Draft and spent six of his seven NFL seasons with the Saints. He last played in the NFL in 2014.
“He’s very much about fundamentals and about development,” said Manale, who met with Meachem twice before extending a job offer.
Meachem accepted the offer Tuesday, Manale said.
Meachem’s first on-field contact with De La Salle players will come with the start of spring practices in the last week in April, the coach said. He otherwise will be with players for conditioning workouts.
“Not every great player is a great coach,” Manale said. “That was one of the big things I wanted to talk to him about, figure him out on the coaching side, the development side, the role model side of things. I decided it was a perfect match after meeting him.”
Manale got in contact with Meachem on the recommendation from former LSU and NFL player Marlon Favorite and from Duke Rousse, who runs a training facility in Kenner.
Manale remembered Meachem with the Saints as a selfless receiver who could block as well as coach passes. For his career, Meachem caught 178 passes for 2,914 yards and 27 touchdown. His career-best numbers came during the Super Bowl season with 45 receptions, 722 yards and nine touchdowns.
“He’s already been around some of the better coaches in the game when he was at Tennessee and then the pros,” Manale said. “Just being around so many great people, he’s definitely going to be a great coach. He was a sponge who picked up a lot of things from a lot of people.”
De La Salle has made two deep runs in the state playoffs the last two seasons, reaching the Division II state championship round in 2017 and then the Division II semifinal round in 2018. Whatever the Cavaliers do next will come with some help from a former Saints player.
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