IRVINE, Calif. — After just about every day of New Orleans Saints training camp so far, a new player stands up to face the cameras and adds to what is becoming a common refrain for this team.
“This is the best I’ve felt through three days of camp in a long time,” said tight end Juwan Johnson.
They’re saying this stuff often enough to not just brush it off as a one-off.
“This is probably the best my body has felt Day 4 into (training) camp since high school maybe?” said center Erik McCoy.
And it’s all coming to them naturally when asked about the schedule implemented by first-year head coach Kellen Moore, one strongly influenced by the team’s new director of Sports Science, Ted Rath.
“This is the best training camp I’ve been a part of,” said defensive tackle Davon Godchaux, now in his ninth NFL training camp. “Coach Kellen, how he’s approached it, the training staff, the staff in general taking care of the guys. This is the best training camp I’ve been a part of.”
That’s only part of that Godchaux quote, by the way. He used that “best training camp” bit four times in his answer.
Several factors have gone into these answers, but the one thing tying it all together is the way Moore is manipulating time to his team’s advantage.
From the team operation side of things, Moore has full control of the Saints’ schedule, and he has crafted an intelligent and efficient approach that is rooted in sports science.
“We spend a lot of time trying to be as detailed as we possibly can, get the drills to be really clean, operate at a really high level,” Moore said. “We’ve got to maximize every chance we get out here to put these guys in a really good position to be successful.”
It’s apparent in the practices themselves. There is very little wasted time where players and coaches are milling around, taking a break to gather themselves for the next drill. The practices feel like a football version of a perpetual motion machine. On the most ambitious day of Saints training camp so far, the team ran 126 plays from scrimmage.
But it’s just as evident when speaking to the players about the things that happen behind closed doors.
Between the end of practice and the first round of team meetings, Moore gives his players a lengthy break, often stretching out more than two hours. Though it’s been hard to nail down how this compares to other operations around the league, the general consensus is that the break is longer than what the players are traditionally used to.
The important thing is not the break itself, but what the players are doing with it.
“When we get done with practice, we’re all tired, you’re beat up, you might have something that is nagging you,” said offensive lineman Landon Young. “And it’s like, what better time to do it than right now?”
That window of time belongs to the players. It does not come with strict instructions from Moore and his staff for how it is to be spent. But the players are using the break in the schedule mainly for two things: Recovery and camaraderie.
“It forces you to recover,” Johnson said. “It treats us as pros like we’re supposed to be. We don’t have to go outsource the recovery, it’s all in house. I’ve even brought some of my own equipment in here to help some guys, like, ‘Look, this is what you can use so we can be great.’
“It’s been the best thing about it. Having guys in there, getting the opportunity to be in the cold tub and the recovery room and honestly (to) connect.”
Offensive lineman Cesar Ruiz, who missed four games with a knee injury last season, intuitively understood the purpose of that empty part of the schedule the moment he saw it.
“My job is to maximize that break and utilize that break and in a way be an example for the guys who are younger and don’t really understand what a routine is, or don’t have a routine,” Ruiz said. “If they’re just sitting around, it’s like, ‘Hey, come get in the cold tub, come get some (cupping therapy), … if anything’s bothering you you can always work on something because it won’t hurt you.’”
The recovery side of things is important to consider, and it goes beyond the time allowed for players to work on their bodies after practice.
Last year, the Saints were among the most injured teams in football. Their long list of players who made a trip to injured reserve played a large part in the team collapsing to a 5-12 last-place finish in the NFC South.
New Orleans devoted significant attention to injury prevention this offseason, hiring Rath to oversee the team’s sports science department. While there is always some degree of luck involved, Rath has an impressive track record when it comes to getting teams to the finish line relatively healthy.
“There’s a lot of analytical information, it’s a lot of load management, a lot of assessment of each individual player,” said general manager Mickey Loomis. “It’s really a lot of things, a lot of variables. But so far it’s been really, really positive. (Rath has) had a good history of effective results in the places he’s been.”
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New Orleans Saints director of sports science Ted Rath during training camp in Metairie on Wednesday, July 30, 2025. (Staff photo by Brett Duke, The Times-Picayune) STAFF PHOTO BY BRETT DUKE
Moore and Rath developed what could be called a stop light schedule that is based on load management and building the players up to peak condition. There are red, yellow and green days on the schedule. Red days are recovery days, where players do little to no work. Green days are meant to be hard.
There are two clear benefits to this. The first is that it is a scientific approach that does not put overt stress on players’ bodies or minds. To illustrate this point, Rath had an analogy.
“You unfortunately fall, you get a scrape, what happens? You develop a scab,” Rath said. “There’s a fine line between a scab and a callous. If you have a scab and you’re constantly picking the scab, what happens? It never heals.”
The Saints, therefore, are looking to callous the players. They gradually build, ease back, then build again. Another way to think of it is progressive overload, allowing the body to adapt and acclimate to strain before testing it again. And the best part about that, Rath said, is that you can then push harder the next time you are scheduled to go hard.
It is the antithesis of the old-school approach, in which routinely tough practices supposedly beget tough players.
“When you continue to peck away at the same high load, high intensity, eventually something is going to break,” Rath said.
The second benefit of the stop light schedule is a little more subtle, but the players and the assistant coaches have picked up on it — especially for the harder “green” days.
“It’s been awesome for the guys because it’s clear,” said offensive line coach Brendan Nugent. “On days we’re going, we’re going. … That way you optimize the players’ work ethic, because they know it’s not just a suggestion on this type of day.”
Nugent said he first got the inkling that this sort of thing was coming when he was an assistant under Moore during their one year together with the Los Angeles Chargers. Moore was still two years away from landing his first head coaching job then, but he’d already begun formulating a plan for how he’d run the show when he got his shot.
Now that he’s gotten to see the plan in practice, Nugent said he’s bought in on Moore. And from the sound of it, he’s not alone.
“The approach of the staff taking care of players is the right approach, and I think everybody should follow it. The players have to stay healthy, because you can have great coaches, but if you don’t have great players you’re nothing without your players.”