Running back Mark Ingram won’t practice with the Saints until Friday, but it doesn’t sound like that’s going to keep head coach Sean Payton from putting him on the field against the Buccaneers this Sunday.
The Saints agreed to a deal with the Texans to bring Ingram back to the team that made him a first-round draft pick in 2011 and he said on Thursday that there’s a “high chance” that he’ll make his second debut with the team this weekend. Payton also shared how he and General Manager Mickey Loomis came to make a play for the veteran back.
“Mickey and I talked about it in Seattle and we felt like it was worth calling, just kind of poking around,” Payton said, via John Hendrix of SI.com. “Once that momentum began, I was still somewhat skeptical, just relative to the role he was playing for them.”
The Saints haven’t had a real complement to Alvin Kamara in the backfield since Tony Jones was injured earlier this month. Ingram’s arrival will change that and the Saints will be hoping that the partnership can bear some of the same fruit it did in Kamara’s first two NFL season.