Tag: reaction

Sean Payton on Michael Thomas injury: ‘This isn’t anything he can control’

Sean Payton on Michael Thomas injury: ‘This isn’t anything he can control’

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Michael Thomas shared the tough news that he won’t play in 2021 on Wednesday, and New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton wants it known that he’s in his corner. He addressed the situation during his weekly media availability session prior to the Saints’ practice session.

“This isn’t anything he can control, the setback was more to do with the procedure he had,” Payton said, referring to the tightrope procedure Thomas underwent in June. He added: “He’s working his tail off.”

Thomas began running and cutting in practice in recent weeks, but he continued to feel pain in his surgically-repaired ankle. After visiting a specialist and receiving scans, they saw enough complications from his prior surgery to raise concerns about another procedure to clean it up.

It’s a really tough break for all involved. The Saints were banking on Thomas returning to elevate a receiving corps that might be the worst in the NFL. Thomas was hoping to reassert himself as one of the biggest playmakers in the game. Now he’s losing another season to an injury he suffered a year ago. It’s frustrating, but Payton is doing his part to put out a united front. Maybe Thomas and the Saints are finally on the same page.

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Saints stand pat at NFL trade deadline; what happens next?

Saints stand pat at NFL trade deadline; what happens next?

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The New Orleans Saints held onto their players and future draft picks, electing to stay put at Tuesday’s NFL trade deadline, which was just boring and frustrating, but that’s par for the course. Unlike pro basketball, baseball, or even hockey and soccer leagues, NFL teams take the coward’s path and hold onto draft picks they’ll spend on players they’ll cut within months jealously.

It’s disappointing to see the Saints stagnate like this. They’ve got clear and obvious room for improvement at wide receiver and tight end, and a smaller need at defensive tackle, to say nothing of the uncertainty at quarterback. But they’ve elected to sit on their hands. Kevin White caught a pass last week; maybe he catches two targets next week, but I probably shouldn’t get ahead of myself.

At least there are some heroes out there like the Los Angeles Rams, who made a blockbuster deal for Von Miller. And the Kansas City Chiefs were aggressive in adding a couple role players. Those visionary, free-wheeling teams are doing their best to liven up a date on the NFL calendar that’s otherwise not worth acknowledging.

How can we fix this? Pushing the trade deadline back a few weeks might do it. Teams that are obviously on the downslope like the 3-4 Atlanta Falcons or 3-5 Philadelphia Eagles could be more willing to offload productive veterans like tight end Hayden Hurst and defensive tackle Fletcher Cox when they’re sitting ugly with six or seven losses instead of delusions of reaching .500 and getting into the playoff race. Instead they’re stubbornly holding onto good players in a doomed season. Nobody’s enjoying that.

Anyway: back to the Saints. They made their moves earlier in trading for Bradley Roby and Mark Ingram. And they’re set up well for the rest of the season, despite having lost Jameis Winston for the season to a knee injury, with just four games on their schedule against teams with a winning record. Here is a quick reminder of which draft picks they have to work with in the next few years (with more comp picks on the way in the spring):

  • 2022: 1, 2, 3 (comp for Terry Fontenot), 4, 5, 7
  • 2023: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7
  • 2024: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

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Notre Dame earns fourth-straight win over USC: Five Takeaways

What is your biggest takeaway from Saturday night’s win over USC?

Notre Dame and USC rekindled their relationship Saturday night as the teams met in South Bend after having to skip the annual series last fall due to the pandemic.

Notre Dame drove the length of the field on their opening drive before missing a field goal, forced a three-and-out of USC, and then drove down the field for a score.

The Irish were in control despite letting things get a bit more interesting than they’d have liked in the fourth quarter.  Here are my five instant takeaways from the — win that moves Notre Dame to 6-1.

Thomas Morstead shouts out his protégé Blake Gillikin after huge game

Thomas Morstead shouts out his protégé Blake Gillikin after huge game

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It didn’t take Thomas Morstead long to win over his New York Jets teammates, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to the many New Orleans Saints fans who cheered for him the last decade. But he found time to catch his old teammates’ game with the Washington Football Team on Sunday after his Jets squad lost a frustrating game in London to the Atlanta Falcons.

And Morstead had to be impressed by what he saw from Blake Gillikin, who he spent the last year of his Saints career tutoring. Gillikin punted five times for 268 yards (53.6 yards per try) and dropped three of them inside Washington’s 3-yard line. It was enough to earn some praise from his mentor on social media afterwards.

But Gillikin didn’t have time to check his phone between celebrating the win and rushing to a postgame press conference, where he said his time at Penn State prepared him for this moment.

“You know, (the Big Ten is) a punting conference, which is great,” Gillikin joked after the game. Between that experience and Morstead’s tutelage, it’s clear he’s the man for this job. We’ll just have to wait and see if he can hold it down for a decade like Morstead did. But there’s no doubting he’s off to a hot start.

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Ryan Clark says Taysom Hill has a ‘Charles Barkley Turrible’ deep ball

Ryan Clark says Taysom Hill has a ‘Charles Barkley Turrible’ deep ball

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ESPN analyst and retired NFL safety Ryan Clark hasn’t had many great things to say about the New Orleans Saints, despite hailing from Marrero, La. and starring at LSU for a few years before turning pro. He’s been critical of the team and its performance, and when rewatching their surprising loss to the New York Giants he focused on one ugly element in particular: Taysom Hill’s deep ball, which he criticized with NBA legend Charles Barkley’s signature jeer.

Hill threw the only Saints interception of the game on a long pass to Deonte Harris, but he didn’t put enough power behind it and the ball fell short, allowing Giants corner James Bradberry to circle back and outmuscle Harris at the catch point. After the game, Sean Payton said that Hill’s plant foot caught in the turf as he threw, but that excuse doesn’t explain the part-time quarterback’s issues going deep throughout his NFL career.

Per Pro Football Focus, Hill is 7-for-14 on throws traveling 20-plus yards (gaining 264 yards) from 2018 to 2021, including 2 touchdowns and 2 interceptions. Quite literally every pass he sends deep downfield is a 50/50 ball. He lacks the arm strength and clean mechanics to push the ball further so it can hit his receivers in stride.

As impressive he’s been in other roles, this is a glaring weakness in his skills set. They may get favorable looks from the defense when asking Hill to throw, but he just isn’t effective enough at it to make taking the ball from Jameis Winston worthwile.

With that said, Clark was complimentary of Hill’s other big moments — including his two “big boy” scoring runs to extend New Orleans’ lead. And he’s correctly pointed out that Hill is at his best when he isn’t the one throwing the ball. When will Payton catch on?

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Drew Brees reacts to Tom Brady winning the all-time passing yards record

Drew Brees reacts to Tom Brady winning the all-time passing yards record

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Here’s a cool gesture from Drew Brees. The legendary New Orleans Saints quarterback offered a hat tip to the NFL’s new all-time leader in career passing yards, saluting Tom Brady from his Instagram account. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers signal-caller won Brees’ own record in his first game against his old New England Patriots team.

Brees praised Brady for his “commitment and dedication” to his craft and teammates, and acknowledged all the work that goes into preparing to play the game at its highest level when cameras aren’t rolling. And then he reminded Brady to appreciate the moment. That’s a class act, from one future Hall of Famer to another.

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Notre Dame stunned by Cincinnati: 5 instant takeaways

What is your instant takeaway from the loss?

Notre Dame survived scares the first three weeks of the season and overpowered Wisconsin in a slugfest for the final quarter last week but if it was good fortune, luck, or anything of the sort, it all ran out on Saturday afternoon as No. 7 Cincinnati gave the Irish a taste of their own medicine in a 24-13 win.

Cincinnati’s secondary is as good as advertised and took advantage of the opportunities they created and with a little help, may just be headed to the College Football Playoff in a few months.

We’re here to talk about Notre Dame’s side of things though on afternoon that so much went wrong.  Here are our five instant takeaways:

Drew Brees has terse response to Saints’ Week 2 Panthers loss

Drew Brees has terse response to Saints’ Week 2 Panthers loss

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One of the benefits of Drew Brees joining NBC Sports as a broadcaster in retirement is his quick reaction to New Orleans Saints games each week — there isn’t anyone better informed about the team than him across the NFL media landscape. He even got a look at their Week 1 game plan for the Green Bay Packers.

But he didn’t mince words when reviewing his old team’s stunning loss to the Carolina Panthers on NBC’s “Football Night in America” panel.

“The Carolina defense completely shut them down today. There was no run game, they got after Jameis Winston,” Brees said tightly, adding: “These Carolina Panthers came ready to play.” And then he quickly transitioned to recap the next game’s results.

It was a brief moment, but it sure felt like a quiet scolding. It’s a safe bet that he reserved more specific criticism for private conversations, which is probably the right move. Raising three rowdy boys prone to wrasslin’ on the sideline at the Pro Bowl is good practice. Entertaining as it may be, dissecting the Saints’ flaws on national television might not be in his or the team’s best interests. Let’s hope they make him proud next week.

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Sean Payton, Jameis Winston point to same problem after Panthers loss

Sean Payton, Jameis Winston point to same problem after Panthers loss:

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Jameis Winston spent a lot of his Sunday afternoon running for cover against a tenacious Carolina Panthers pass rush, which prevented the New Orleans Saints offense from doing almost anything productive. After the game finished with a disappointing 26-7 final tally, both Winston and Saints coach Sean Payton identified the same problem — miscommunication up front.

“I have to take responsibility for communicating with the offensive line,” Winston said. “Got to get us in better protections. Just communicate better out there.”

The Saints looked sloppy after a year spent playing in front of half-empty stadiums amid the pandemic. They were slow to break the huddle, slow to get in position, and slow to snap the ball. As Winston noted, they were ineffective in making adjustments, too. A number of unblocked Panthers defenders crashed through the offensive line untouched. The blocking assignments weren’t up to snuff, and the offense as a whole suffered for it. New Orleans is built for the big men in the trenches to pave running lanes for Alvin Kamara and buy time for a subpar wide receivers corps to get open downfield. They weren’t able to accomplish either of those goals.

“Our protection plan wasn’t good,” Payton added. “It had nothing to do with us being short-handed.”

Payton wasn’t willing to accept the coaching staff’s absences as an excuse, but it clearly tripped them up. They took a couple of penalties and burnt a few timeouts they shouldn’t have had to with cleaner lines of communication from the sideline to the press box to the field. Eight different position coaches were unable to join the team while in the league’s COVID-19 protocol. Rookie quarterback Ian Book, inactive, did his best in signaling personnel substitutions.

But not all of that blame falls on poor communication. Winston admitted he had to make better decisions, not just in where he put the football (tossing a pair of ill-advised interceptions) but in the pre-snap adjustments he called out along the line. Working with a new center in Cesar Ruiz while Erik McCoy is on the mend, too often he misdiagnosed the defense’s pressure packages, putting himself and his teammates in a tight spot.

The good news is that the entire coaching staff is vaccinated and should be back to full strength sooner rather than later. McCoy avoided a three-game stint on injured reserve, so he should return soon, too. We’ll just have to hope the offense can get back up to speed in the meantime.

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Twitter reacts to Saints’ 26-7 loss vs. Panthers

Twitter reacts to Saints’ 26-7 loss vs. Panthers

The New Orleans Saints are a fun team to follow. They’re normally high-energy, competitive, and full of personality — pettiness from players, arrogance from head coach Sean Payton. It makes it easy to create enemies. So naturally the vultures are quick to circle whenever they struggle. Fans and analysts on Twitter kept a close eye on the Saints during their 26-7 loss to the Carolina Panthers, and the reactions, well, speak for themselves.