NO HONEY: Safety Tyrann Mathieu has missed the first five training camp practices with an excused absence. While Allen said that, at some point, missed time could prove to be a factor, the Saints haven’t yet reached that threshold.
“We’re really kind of allowing him the space to handle what he needs to handle, and we’ll be sitting here with open arms when he’s ready to come back,” Allen said.
PAD DAYS: The unmistakable thud of pads smashing into other pads permeated the air Monday morning, the Saints’ first training camp practice in full pads. Allen said the heat and humidity likely factored into the workout.
“I thought it was OK,” Allen said of practice. “It’s hot and you put the pads on, it’s difficult. I thought there was maybe a little bit of a lull somewhere in there in the middle of practice, but I think overall they pushed through and did a pretty nice job.”
McCoy and the linemen – offensive and defensive – looked forward to the padded practice, and to those in the coming days. Linemen, they said, best can be evaluated when physicality is involved.
“Got to love it,” McCoy said. “The beating. Getting back to nine on seven (nine offense, seven defense) where they let us focus on the run game. We saw some good stuff. I watched the tape already, I’m excited.”
“It’s a lot different for an O-lineman,” Penning said. “O-linemen playing with jerseys on, it’s kind of hard to…the timing is all different. Grabbing guys. It’s completely different.
“Timing. Timing your punches down is different, because they’ve got more surface area on them. You have to have a point where you can hit them, almost. There’s just a bunch (that’s different).”
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