New Orleans Saints fans will have to wait until the regular season opener to see Tyler Shough lead the first-string offense onto the field. after Wednesday's practice at Tulane's Yulman Stadium, Saints head coach Kellen Moore said that "a lot of" first teamers won't play in Friday's preseason finale with the Dallas Cowboys.
Moore added that the first-team units on offense and defense saw 145 snaps between three joint practice sessions, which he felt was plenty of work. They were able to run different situations against different opponents' best players and learn what they needed in those controlled environments. From his point of view, putting his top talents into an exhibition game would just be an injury risk.
There's a couple of different trains of thought here. On the one hand, some coaches like to use the final preseason game as a "dress rehearsal" where they can see how their offense runs a scripted drive and their defense responds to real pressure. On the other hand, there's been a movement around the league to dial down the preseason snaps and protect their most valuable players from injury. That's an easy argument to buy when the game's result doesn't matter.
Even so, this approach will be second-guessed if the Saints start sloppy in a few weeks. Stumbling out of the gates and playing low-scoring, penalty-prone football and losing a couple of games (which is very possible between back-to-back road trips to visit the Detroit Lions and Baltimore Ravens in Weeks 1 and 2) would invite a lot of criticism for not getting the starting units onto the field in these preseason games. Clearly that's a risk Moore is comfortable taking.
This article originally appeared on Saints Wire: Kellen Moore: 'A lot of' Saints' first teamers won't play in preseason
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