Saints set sights on Thursday night's preseason opener against Browns
 

With 11 days of training camp practices in the books, the evaluation process on the road to the initial 53-man roster for the New Orleans Saints begins in earnest Thursday night.

Coach Sean Payton said Monday his plan on distributing snaps among starters and backups for the preseason opener on the road against the Cleveland Browns will be discussed Tuesday among the coaching staff.

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But the Saints aren't likely to stray too far from what has been done in the past.

"We've typically operated in three phases," Payton said. "We've operated with the first phase, starters somewhere in that quarter range, 15 snaps. We get into the second phase, generally it takes us in the third quarter, and then we finish with our third phase. There are a lot of exceptions to that based on what our goals are for that player in this game."

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