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Saints rookie David Onyemata's scuffle 'shocked' Sean Payton ⦠in a good way

METAIRIE, La. -- Normally a practice scuffle isn’t the best way to demonstrate a player’s maturity in the NFL. But that was oddly the case for New Orleans Saints rookie David Onyemata a couple of weeks ago.

Onyemata, the Saints’ Nigerian-born defensive tackle who just began playing football five years ago when he went to college in Canada, faced a much bigger learning curve than most last season. And Saints coach Sean Payton described the fourth-round draft pick as someone who “comes across as very warm, which I think he is, and he’s someone that’s bright.