Saints won’t hold virtual workouts

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Twelve NFL teams opened their offseason programs this week and most of them are limiting their interactions with players to meetings and classroom work, but three of them are holding virtual workouts during this unprecedented stretch.

Other teams may join the Patriots, Bills and Colts, but the Saints won’t be among them. General Manager Mickey Loomis confirmed that the Saints are going to trust their players to put in work to keep themselves in shape and won’t be running any remote workouts over the next couple of months.

“Look, guys, I’ve been so focused on the draft,” Loomis said. “To be honest with you, I haven’t spent a lot of time thinking about that offseason program as we go forward. We’re not going to be doing virtual workouts and things like that. We want to make sure guys are focused on their families and safety. We have a lot of guys that we have a lot of faith and trust in, in terms of being in shape when we do get going for training camp.”

Loomis added that he felt the team would be OK under the circumstances because they have had the same system in place under head coach Sean Payton for a long time and have a lot of carryover on the roster. Those comments came shortly after ESPN reported on Payton delivering the same message to the team during a video conference.