By Ross Jackson
NEW ORLEANS, La. – The New Orleans Saints are taking training camp back to the West Coast. But don’t worry. They’ll still open camp in Metairie, La. at the practice facility.
Saints head coach Kellen Moore met with the media via Zoom after canceling Thursday’s final day of mandatory minicamp practices and shared the team’s training camp plans in detail.
“We’ll obviously start in New Orleans, in Metairie specifically, at our facility,” he said. “We’re really excited about that. We’ll be home, we’ll get into that routine. It’ll be really, really good. We will go to California, kind of tied around our Chargers preseason game, and so we’ll be there August 6th through August 15th for a small window.”
New Orleans will set up shop again at the University of California, Irvine from August 6-15, per Moore. This sends the team back to the same site it held its entire training camp session last year.
For Moore, the opportunity to go to Irvine for a portion of camp is about more than just getting out of the Louisiana heat.
“I think more importantly, it’s a really good opportunity for us just to put the guys in a little bit of a different environment,” said Moore.”Those guys will spend a lot of time together, naturally, when you kind of go on a longer road trip. And so we feel like that’s a great opportunity for our team to continue to connect.”
However, the Saints will not hold joint practices against the Chargers, as originally anticipated. The preseason game between the two teams will be hosted at SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles on Sunday, August 10.
Following the conclusion of the practice, the team will return to Metairie and New Orleans for their final two preseason games against the Jacksonville Jaguars and Denver Broncos.
