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After injuries, Saints WR Michael Thomas eyes NFL comeback

Katherine Terrell, ESPN Staff Writer
Aug 31, 2023, 07:00 AM ET

METAIRIE, La. -- Michael Thomas is putting on a clinic.

It's a Thursday afternoon in the New Orleans Saints training facility, well past the dog days of training camp and into the portion of the summer when weary players are counting down the days until the regular season.

Saints quarterback Derek Carr has decided the 30-year-old wideout is the day's favorite target. He sends three passes Thomas' way to start off 7-on-7 drills, then connects with him downfield on the first pass of 11-on-11 work.

Carr keeps at it, finishing off with two straight connections to Thomas in the two-minute drill. Thomas makes catch after and catch, and by the end of the day, he has 10 receptions.

"Mike's looked better and better every time he's come out here," Saints coach Dennis Allen said that afternoon. " ... We kind of knew that at some point we'd start seeing what we kind of expect out of him, and I think we're seeing that more and more every day he's out here."

It is the most Thomas has caught all throughout training camp.

It is the most Thomas has caught in years.

As the Saints approach their first regular-season game against the Tennessee Titans on Sept. 10 (1 p.m. ET, CBS), the same question lingers every day: Can Thomas be the player he used to be? The one who started his career by posting four 1,000-plus yard receiving seasons (2016-19).

No matter the opinions of promise or doubt, there are no absolutes in football. There is only hope.

THERE HAVE BEEN moments in practice when it would have been easy to look at Thomas and picture the younger version of himself -- the bolder, brasher version who once hid a flip phone in the goal posts to pay homage to former Saint Joe Horn's famous touchdown celebration to highlight one of his own.

Former Saints quarterback Drew Brees, who played with Thomas from 2016 to 2020, attended joint practices in Los Angeles against the Chargers in Week 2 of the preseason. Brees, who has been retired since 2021, was asked whether he'd still like to pick up the ball and throw to some of his old guys, and his answer was almost wistful.

"It's hard not to sit there and look at [running back Alvin] Kamara , [tight end] Jimmy [ Graham] and Mike T, and say, 'These three guys, right?' The moments that I had with them, if you could just bottle that up, right? That was pretty special," Brees told the official Saints podcast.

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