IRVINE, Calif. — Before they get on a plane to head back home, the New Orleans Saints will get a practice against a team in a different color uniform.
The Saints will compete against the Los Angeles Rams Thursday afternoon — their final practice of their West Coast swing before they fly back to New Orleans Friday. The discussions about the joint practices had been going on for days, but the Saints didn't confirm things on their end until Wednesday evening.
Coach Kellen Moore said the practice will heavily focus on the first team units, though he does plan to continue to rotate quarterbacks to work with the starting offense.
“It’ll be a great opportunity for our guys to compete against some really good players,” Moore said. “They’ve got a really, really good team that made a deep run in the playoffs (last year).”
This will be the team's first set of joint practices since the 2023 season, when the Saints participated in them against the Los Angeles Chargers.
The Saints did not have joint practices set up on their schedule during this training camp, though they did put in an effort to work with the Los Angeles Chargers. The Rams were supposed to host joint practices with the Chargers this week, but the Chargers pulled out after suffering multiple injuries, creating a window of opportunity.
“It initially started with Sean (McVay) and myself, and from there obviously there’s a lot of logistics, a lot of people that have to work extra time just to orchestrate this thing. … This came up a few days ago, it’s been our goal to see if we can make it work.”
Though the Rams are on the Saints’ schedule this season, Moore said there wasn’t much concern about giving away any sort of competitive advantage by practicing against each other because of when the game falls: The Saints will travel back out to Los Angeles in November for a Week 9 contest against the Rams.
“We’ll probably have a good feel for what both of us are doing at that point,” Moore said.