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NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reports that Drew Brees “won’t practice much, if at all” on Wednesday, his first day of eligibility to be activated from injured reserve. The New Orleans Saints quarterback has spent three weeks on I.R. after being diagnosed with a collapsed lung and 11 broken ribs, and while he’s been hopeful to return as soon as possible for Week 14’s game with the Philadelphia Eagles, it doesn’t appear that he’ll be cleared just yet.
That’s not too surprising given Saints coach Sean Payton’s comments on Tuesday, when he expressed optimism in Brees’ recovery but couldn’t share a timeline for his return to work. And he isn’t too worried about coaching games in Brees’ absence; Payton is 8-0 when fielding a backup quarterback the last two seasons, having won each of Taysom Hill’s first starts in 2020.
Rapoport also said that the most realistic target for Brees to return is Week 15, when the Saints host the Kansas City Chiefs in New Orleans. That clash between each conference’s projected No. 1 playoff seed should carry ramifications of some kind for half the teams in the NFL, and possibly end up being a Super Bowl preview. There aren’t many competitors like Brees out there, and he’ll certainly want to take his best shot at Patrick Mahomes, the league’s rising star that once beat him in a close race for the 2018 Most Valuable Player award.
#Saints QB Drew Brees, progressing well in his rehab from a lung puncture & fractured ribs, won’t practice much, if at all, today, I’m told. He’s eligible to come off IR now. They could ramp him up Thursday to see how he feels, but a more realistic target to play has been W15.
— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) December 9, 2020
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