New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees could reportedly miss some time after suffering a rib injury against the San Francisco 49ers.
Zach Strief, Voice of the Saints and a former Saints offensive lineman, was discouraged by Brees's body language during his post-game press conference.
“You could tell that 1) he was uncomfortable and 2) that he was concerned about it. So we'll have to wait and see.”
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Jameis Winston took over for Brees after halftime. His numbers were decent – 6-10 for 63 yards with no touchdowns or interceptions – but that was not surprising for Strief.
“I think Jameis did fine,” Strief said. “I don't he was super effective. But at the end of the day, what you really can't do in that situation is give the ball away, which has certainly been Jameis's issue in the past. And he did have one [pass] kind of go through the hands of [49ers defensive back] Jimmie Ward in the fourth quarter.
“But let's not judge Jameis Winston on coming in after halftime,” Strief continued. “We saw that last year with Teddy Bridgewater in how he played at [Los Angeles] against the Rams. It's just not fair to judge a guy at that position in this offense with all the complexities they build into this offense when Drew Brees is the quarterback. To not have any reps and walk on the field and say 'here, go execute this.' It's unfair to make an assessment [right now].”
After Brees went down in the first quarter against the Rams last year, Bridgewater struggled, completing just 56.6% of his passes for 165 yards as the Saints failed to score a touchdown. With reps with the first team and time to prepare, however, Bridgewater found his footing and helped lead the Saints to five straight wins without Brees.
“The Saints have an opportunity to build an offense more around his strengths,” Strief said. “We'll see what the Saints do to try to make things simple on him, and he's certainly got plenty of weapons around him to make it work.”
While Strief believes Winston will start should Brees miss any games, he still expects to see Taysom Hill heavily involved in the gameplan.
“We're going to see plenty of Taysom Hill at quarterback,” Strief said. I do think they'll leave Jameis as the starting quarterback if Drew's unable to go just because of all the other stuff you lose if you lose Taysom to strictly the quarterback role.”
We'll find out more as the week progresses. No matter who lines up at quarterback, the Saints take on the Atlanta Falcons for the first time this season on Sunday at noon.