Brees didn’t get Thomas paid. Thomas is really like that. We could see it from Day One when he first hit the field. Brees couldn’t feed anybody else in his tenure with the Saints to record breaking numbers. Not Marques Colston. Not Jimmy Graham. Not Brandin Cooks. I get that’s it’s the cool thing now to pile on Thomas but he and Brees were an asset to each other. If we aren’t going to say Jerry Rice was great because Joe Montana and Steve Young were feeding him then let’s not say it about Thomas either. His contested catch ability is ridiculous.

Brees and Thomas were both great. Now they have both succumbed to age and injuries. When they played together they helped eachother but as we saw with Rodgers, Adams, Maholmes, and Hill, great QBs and receivers who are great together can still be great apart. The one exception we saw was Rodgers in the first half where the replacements for Adams were not even mediocre. So Brees would likely have struggled with the 2022 Saints receiving core and Thomas would likely have seen some decline with Dalton or say with the QB situation Terry McLauren has had. During his prime Thomas was the best receiver in Saints history but his prime was short. But when looking as specific stats like catch rate, its hard to say Brees didnt have some positive effect on Thomas. You could take Jerry Rice’s conditioning and Randy Moss’s physicality and Michael Thomas’ hands and put Sean Payton as coach and that WR could not catch 85% of passes with Zach Wilson as QB.

Brees didn’t get Thomas paid. Thomas is really like that. We could see it from Day One when he first hit the field. Brees couldn’t feed anybody else in his tenure with the Saints to record breaking numbers. Not Marques Colston. Not Jimmy Graham. Not Brandin Cooks. I get that’s it’s the cool thing now to pile on Thomas but he and Brees were an asset to each other. If we aren’t going to say Jerry Rice was great because Joe Montana and Steve Young were feeding him then let’s not say it about Thomas either. His contested catch ability is ridiculous.

Thomas was trained by his uncle, Keyshawn Johnson, who played in the NFL at a high level. Thomas came into the league highly motivated and highly skilled. I remember telling my brother when I first saw him that he was going to sell a lot of jerseys. Stay healthy Mike.

While I don't agree with some of the things Thomas has done/said off field and regarding his injuries, I never doubt/doubted his ability and effectiveness as a WR when he was/is playing. He showed that the few games he played this last season. Thomas of 2018 and 2019 was as impactful a WR as the NFL has ever seen and it wasn't just because he had Brees throwing him the ball.

Whether or not he can get back to that stage at 30 years of age is a Question I'd hope all Saints fans here want him to answer with a resounding Yes! If he even comes back at 80 % of what he was he will still be our best WR IMO.
Having doubts is perfectly reasonable. Some users can't seem to understand why these doubts exist and poke at the ones who express it. Some users so heavily doubt that they actively appear to be rooting against Thomas to succeed. I don't agree with either of these viewpoints.

Another thing I'm thinking while I read through this thread is that the most deciding factor (should Olave, Thomas, and Shaheed all be on the field) on who our "best" WR is is who the other team's Defenses think our number 1,2,and 3 threats are. Where they put their number one CB will likely be the answer to that. Should all three be healthy I'd think Thomas draws that guy more often than Shaheed or Olave. But time will tell.