The New Orleans Saints and Houston Texans aren’t just going to be highlighted with a national broadcast in their upcoming preseason game — they’re going to be the only show in town. The rest of the NFL will complete their exhibition series Thursday, Friday, or Saturday, but New Orleans and Houston aren’t going to play until Sunday.
And FOX Sports will be shining the bright lights on them at the Caesars Superdome. Kickoff is currently scheduled for 7 p.m. CT/8 p.m. ET on Sunday, Aug. 27.
But how often will the starters actually play? In last year’s third and final preseason game, the Saints pulled Jameis Winston and the starters after just 11 snaps. Defensively, mainstays like Cameron Jordan (9 snaps), Demario Davis and Tyrann Mathieu (15) saw similarly light workloads.
It remains to be seen how heavily Houston will play their starters under first-year head coach DeMeco Ryans, but odds are they’ll want to get a good look at rookie quarterback C.J. Stroud. That could be important when the Saints make the return trip to play the Texans on their home turf just a few weeks later in Week 6 of the regular season.
There’s a lot of intrigue surrounding this exhibition game. Beyond it being the last preseason matchup on the NFL’s calendar, it will follow several days of joint practices between the Saints and Texans at their Metairie training facility. This game will also precede the 2023 roster cuts deadline by just two days; this year, the NFL decided to condense the process down from multiple waves of releases to a single day with teams reducing rosters from 90 players to just 53 on Tuesday, Aug. 29.
So this preseason game will be the last opportunity many players on the roster bubble will have to make their case before the Saints get into the tough business of thinning out their roster.
