METAIRIE, Louisiana – New Orleans Saints recipient Michael Thomas is likely to have surgery on the torn deltoid and other injured ligaments in his ankle that have plagued him throughout the season, a source told ESPN’s Adam Schefter on Tuesday.
Thomas suffered an ankle injury in the final minutes of Week 1 and lost a total of nine games in the regular season. But the source said he knew it was probably the last season for Drew Brees and didn’t want to miss the chance to win a Super Bowl with him.
Thomas often did not train all week, but still played games, at much less than 100% and with pain medication, the source said. The coaches told him that, even though he was injured as he was, they were much better off with him than without him.
Thomas went on to injury reserve in weeks 15-17 to try to stay as healthy as possible in the playoffs. He returned with five receptions for 73 yards and his first touchdown of the season in the wild card playoff victory over the Chicago Bears. However, he had no reception on four targets in the playoff defeat of the divisional round to Tampa Bay – including a near-touchdown in which his knee was considered off the field.
Thomas also lost Weeks 2-8 after suffering the injury for the first time, so he was punished by a game for a training fight that included him punching teammate CJ Gardner-Johnson, and then suffering a tendon injury during his recovery.
He ended the regular season with 40 receptions for 438 yards and zero touchdowns in seven games – just one season after setting the NFL record with 149 receptions in 2019. He did, however, two games with nine receptions and over 100 yards receiving during the passage of four Taysom Hill games in QB, while Brees was sidelined because of his own injuries.
The 510 receptions in Thomas’ career are the most frequent for a player in the first five seasons of his NFL career.