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The New Orleans Saints made a handful of roster moves on Saturday, just a day before their Week 17 kickoff with the Carolina Panthers. ESPN’s Mike Triplett and Nola.com’s Amie Just first reported the transactions.
Two players were waived from the active roster, including veteran offensive tackle Michael Ola and recently-signed defensive back DeShawn Shead.
In their place, the Saints called up practice squad wide receiver Lil’Jordan Humphrey and brought back fullback Ricky Ortiz. Ortiz spent a few weeks on the Saints practice squad from Nov. 22 to Dec. 4, while Humphrey was promoted to the active roster for several games earlier this year.
These moves were likely made in response to a number of still-developing injury situations for New Orleans. All-star left tackle Terron Armstead was not listed on the Saints injury report this week after spending the better part of a month recovering from a high-ankle sprain, making Ola’s spot on the roster unnecessary.
On top of that, Saints fullback Zach Line was a sudden addition to Friday’s injury report, while dealing with a knee injury. He was sidelined for a few recent games with the same issue, so Ortiz’s addition probably signals that Line will be unavailable against Carolina.
As for Humphrey’s call-up: the Saints designated reserve wideout Krishawn Hogan to the injured reserve list after last week’s win over the Tennessee Titans, opening up a spot on the active roster. Hogan was predominately used as a blocker, which Humphrey may be better-suited for than fellow rookie Emmanuel Sanders.
Shead’s release is puzzling, though. The Saints are going to be without three of their top defensive backs (including safeties Vonn Bell and Marcus Williams, and cornerback Eli Apple) so having someone with experience at several positions would have been useful. This could mean that they like their depth in the secondary well enough and weren’t expecting Shead to play much in his first week on the job anyway. It’s possible he returns after this game, however, but by no means is that a sure thing.
So now the Saints 53-man roster is back at capacity, while the practice squad has one open spot. Stay tuned to see what the Saints choose to do next.
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