Saints wide receiver Michael Thomas reportedly spent much of the offseason ignoring calls from the team checking in on the status of his ankle injury.
Jeff Duncan of Nola.com reports that Thomas ignored multiple calls over a three-month period as then-Saints trainer Beau Lowery, wide receivers coach Curtis Johnson and head coach Sean Payton all tried to reach him to see how his ankle was doing.
Thomas was initially advised by the Saints’ medical staff to have the ankle surgery immediately after the Saints’ postseason came to an end, but after getting a second opinion he decided to try a more conservative approach and see if the ankle would heal without surgery. That didn’t work, and Thomas ultimately had the surgery in June. The recovery time from the surgery will cause Thomas to miss several games at the start of the season, and Payton said recently that Thomas should have had the surgery earlier.
If Thomas had stayed in touch with the team over the offseason, the determination that he needed the surgery might have been made earlier, and he might have recovered in time for the regular season. Instead, Thomas disappeared for much of the offseason, and now the Saints won’t have him to start the season. And it’s clear that the Saints aren’t happy about that.