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The NFL has had to implement so many new rules and procedures due to the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic that New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton almost doesn’t recognize training camp after all of the changes.
It’s started with almost a week of coronavirus testing outside the Saints practice facility in Metairie, with players arriving in waves before they can be cleared to just walk into their locker room for the first time.
For Saints left tackle Terron Armstead, the experience of seeing his friends and teammates for the first time after a long summer of social distancing has made him flash back to his schoolyard days.
“Still a bit of uncertainty, still unchartered territory for sure,” Armstead said in his first media availability session before Saints training camp. “We’re just trying to go with the flow and figure out exactly what we need to do and where we need to be. It still was that same excitement seeing guys, (but) we have different testing times. Pulling up and going to test and by the time you take off you see a few of the guys and it’s always great, like the first day of school seeing the guys again.”
The Saints are enjoying a lot of continuity from last season, with Armstead among four returning starters along the offensive line. The fifth projected starter, top rookie draft pick Cesar Ruiz, is someone Armstead and the other veterans have worked to help get up to speed before his first training camp.
Armstead credited Ruiz for being a quick study, having rapidly picked up the playbook and asked good questions during virtual meetings with teammates and position coaches. But at the end of the day, it’s up to Ruiz to keep up with the pace of the offense. Armstead and the other veterans can only help him so much, but the rookie’s knowledge of the offense has him feeling optimistic.
Armstead continued, “That’s extremely important for him. So by the time we get on the field, we just hit the ground running. There is not much time to slow roll it. We’re on a limited clock before we take some real snaps. (We’ll) try to make every single rep count, all the practice time, all the meeting time, we’ll make all of that count. It’s nothing that any of us did to put ourselves in this situation, but we’re here now.”
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