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Report: Michael Thomas ignored calls from Saints coaches and trainers for months regarding ankle injury
By Paul Harvey
Published:
Michael Thomas saw his 2020 season derailed with injuries, and his offseason has been less than stellar to this point.
It started a couple of weeks ago when reports surfaced that Thomas had recently undergone surgery to repair his injured ankle. That was one of the injuries he battled throughout 2020 and was expected to get surgery early in the offseason.
Unfortunately, Thomas reportedly tried to rehab the injury before eventually undergoing surgery. The delay in his surgery means Thomas will likely be unavailable until Week 7 of the NFL season.
The entire story becomes even weirder with a report provided by Jeff Duncan with Nola.com. According to Duncan, Thomas ignored phone calls from head coach Sean Payton, then-Saints trainer Beau Lowery, and wide receivers coach Curtis Johnson. Thomas reportedly ignored and did not return their calls for a period of three months before reporting to the team in June.
Payton went on to call the lack of communication disappointing, indicating that the surgery for Thomas should have happened much sooner in the offseason:
“It’s disappointing,” Payton said last week when asked about the situation. “We would have liked (the surgery) to have happened earlier rather than later. And quite honestly, it should have.”
Considering New Orleans is entering its first season post-Drew Brees, the Saints would love to have their All-Pro receiver available. It will be interesting to see how this saga plays out.
Paul is a lifelong fan and student of all things college football. He has been covering college football since 2017 and the B1G since 2018.