Saints trying to insulate players as much as possible

Gumbo

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Mar 19, 2019
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The NBA has shown us so far that sports in a bubble can work. Major League Baseball has shown us that sports outside a bubble does not go so smoothly.

So Saints coach Sean Payton is trying to create as limited an experience for his team as possible.

According to Peter King of NBC’s Football Morning in America, the Saints are renting four floors of the Loews Hotel in the French Quarter to house most of the team’s Tier One and Tier Two employees until the start of the regular season.

“It’s not a bubble,” Payton said. “It’s a sequester. The message from the league is, ‘The show must go on.’ If so, we’ve got to do everything we can to be sure that happens.”

Payton looks around at the news with particular sensitivity, as the first NFL coach to contract COVID-19 (Eagles coach Doug Pederson joined him in that club last night).

The Saints had no positive tests during the first round of screenings last week. No one is required to stay in the hotel, but it’s an option designed to limit exposure as much as possible.

“Isn’t that what we do for a living?” Payton said. “It’s like creating a game plan with a likelihood of success. We’re just trying to increase the odds of success.”

With between 150 and 180 total team employees (players, coaches, and support staff) living in the hotel for the next month or so, they’re still dependent on those employees making good decisions while they’re off work for the plan to work.
 
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