The Saints’ season is all but in the gutter, but the team will still welcome back their starting center for the stretch run of the season. The team is expected to activate starting center Erik McCoy from IR in time for tomorrow’s game against the Browns, per ESPN’s Katherine Terrell.
McCoy suffered a groin injury only a few snaps into Week 3 and subsequently underwent surgery. He’s missed each of New Orleans’ last seven games, although a return seemed imminent when he returned to practice earlier this month. While the Saints sit three games out of a playoff spot in the NFC, the staff is still more than happy to slot the veteran OL back atop the depth chart.
“Should be good to go,” interim coach Darren Rizzi said of McCoy. “I thought we did the right thing here the last couple of weeks with his volume in practice, amped it up a little bit every day, and he looks like he’s ready to go. Unless we have a setback between now and Sunday, I imagine he’d be in there.”
There have been plenty of changes in New Orleans since McCoy went down with an injury. Most notably, the team moved on from head coach Dennis Allen, and the offense has lost two major pieces in Chris Olave and Rashid Shaheed. While Derek Carr made a relatively quick return from his oblique injury, he’s had to play behind an inexperienced OL. With McCoy out of the lineup and Ryan Ramczyk lost for the season, Cesar Ruiz represented the only holdover from the Drew Brees/Sean Payton era.
A 2019 second-round pick, McCoy has been a full-time starter since joining New Orleans. After missing nine combined games between the 2021 and 2022 seasons, the center managed to get into all 17 games in 2023, leading to his first career Pro Bowl nod. He’ll step right back into his starting center spot, and the Saints won’t have to juggle any additional depth after they cut fill-in Connor McGovern earlier this week.