New Orleans Saints Release Linebacker Junior Galette – blogged by @LoveRubyWoo

The Saints have decided to part ways with veteran linebacker Junior Galette. Galette, who has spent his entire 5-year NFL career in New Orleans, is now a free agent and can be picked up by any team right before the start of training camp. Once one of the team’s best defensive players, Galette’s relationship with the team has gotten so bad over the past year that they essentially paid him to leave. Since the Saints released him rather than traded him, they will still have to pay the $17.5 million that he was guaranteed to make over the next two years as part of his $41.5 million contract extension. 

For the Saints, things started to get bad for them as soon as Galette signed the big 4-year contract extension at the start of the 2014 season. His ego seemed to grow along with his salary, and people felt that he was creating conflict among the team’s defensive players. He even got in a fight with nose tackle Brandon Deaderick before one of their games last season. “I love Junior, don’t get me wrong,” a team source said. “To his credit, he works harder than anyone I know. But when they made Junior a captain, that requires another level of maturity. He didn’t necessarily capture that. He took it more as a status than being an actual leader.”

It only got worse after the season was over. In January, Galette was accused by a woman of getting violent with her while he was trying to kick her out of the house. Galette was arrested on domestic violence charges but the case was ultimately dismissed. In June, a video surfaced of a man who looked a lot like Galette getting in an altercation on South Beach with a group of people. He is seen fighting a man with a belt, then hitting a woman with it, and it ends with him shoving and throwing a punch at several people. Though the video was from a couple of years ago, it was still not a good look at all for Galette, who was already on thin ice with the Saints.

With their decision, the Saints have made it quite clear that they’ve had enough of Galette’s antics and don’t want anything to do with him anymore. As for Galette, he’s not taking the news too well. “It was the worst call they’ve ever made,” he told NOLA.com | The Times Picayune. “It was a terrible call to kick me when I’m down.”