Here’s a situation to watch closely. Friday’s final Week 1 New Orleans Saints injury report listed star safety Tyrann Mathieu as questionable to play in Sunday’s season opener with the Atlanta Falcons, having missed practice due to a sudden illness. It’s a surprising development given Mathieu’s regular participation in practice throughout the week, but these things happen.
The timing just couldn’t be worse. The Saints are already down starting cornerback Paulson Adebo, who is still recovering from a preseason ankle injury. This comes just a week after the team traded nickel corner C.J. Gardner-Johnson to the Eagles, which was followed by big free agent acquisition Marcus Maye being arrested following what’s been described as a road rage incident.
While that isn’t expected to impact Maye’s early-season availability (the NFL typically waits for the legal process to resolve itself before issuing suspensions and other discipline), it does illustrate the variety of hurdles the Saints secondary is experiencing. New Orleans built this team on the strength of its pass defense. That’s still the case with Marshon Lattimore anchoring one side of the field at cornerback with experienced backups Bradley Roby and P.J. Williams eager to step back into the lineup (and rookie draft pick Alontae Taylor hungry for his own opportunity), but playing a heated rival without Adebo and possibly without Mathieu is, ah, a challenging proposition.
There’s nothing to be done for it now. We’ll see if anything develops on this front after Saturday’s walkthrough practice, and then it’s off to pregame warmups Sunday morning. One way or another, the Saints secondary depth is going to be tested sooner than they may have anticipated this year.
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