Injuries are starting to pile up for the New Orleans Saints, but head coach Dennis Allen isn’t panicking. The team’s rookie first-round draft pick Bryan Bresee missed practice on Saturday, Aug. 5, but Allen made a point to downplay the severity of what he’s dealing with.
“We held Bryan Bresee out with a calf injury, doesn’t seem like that’s going to anything of significance,” Allen said, continuing, “We also held out Demario Davis, he went over for some imaging on his calf. I don’t believe any of these to be serious but they are soft-tissue injuries.”
Allen added that wide receivers Rashid Shaheed and Tre’Quan Smith left practice with groin issues, while rookie running back Kendre Miller had to briefly step out of practice with a minor jaw injury. The only serious injury is what the Saints believe to be a ruptured Achilles tendon for veteran running back Eno Benjamin, likely ending his season.
Preventing and treating soft-tissue injuries like these has been a point of emphasis for the Saints since Allen was promoted to head coach; one of his first personnel moves was to change up the team’s training staff, hiring Matt Rhea away from Alabama as his new sports science director, overseeing the strength and conditioning program. That helped the Saints avoid many such injuries last season, with fewer torn tendons and more broken bones or bruised internal organs, but at the end of the day there’s only so much that can be done in a violent sport like pro football.
Hopefully Bresee can return to practice soon. He needs all the reps he can get after injuries derailed his time at Clemson. Durability was the concern when the Saints drafted him. Bresee’s college career started with a 2020 knee sprain, then a torn ACL in 2021. When he returned in 2022 he started the season with a serious case of strep throat that led to a kidney infection and hospitalization. In total, he played 912 defensive snaps in 25 games at the college level, or about 36.5 each week. The Saints are asking him to shoulder a heavy load — David Onyemata, the player Bresee is replacing, averaged 40 snaps per game last year alone.
