NOLA Saints are running out of players to throw to on offense

The NOLA Saints are spiraling out of control, evidenced by their 40-29 loss to the Eagles on Sunday. To make matters worse, it appears they’ll be without starting tight end Adam Trautman for the next four-six weeks, per Adam Schefter.

It figures this would happen after Trautman finally showed he could be a competent player. He’d done very little for the first 10 weeks of the season but was second in receiving yards on Sunday and had his first touchdown of the season as well.

With Trautman sidelined for at least the next month, the Saints are in an even worse situation on offense. They were already hurting for weapons on that side of the ball and Trautman had somewhat emerged as a target for Trevor Siemian. Who’s the Saints quarterback (whether it’s Siemian or Taysom Hill) going to throw to now?

NOLA Saints have no weapons on offense

Nick Vannett was signed over the offseason and is the likely replacement for Trautman at TE1. Juwan Johnson has been a healthy scratch in two games but that shouldn’t happen again with Trautman on the shelf. Johnson had actually outplayed Trautman for the majority of the season, making it even more frustrating that he was inactive on two separate occasions.

The NOLA offense is a complete and total mess right now, so this Trautman news couldn’t have happened at a worse time. This team dropped to 5-5 after being on top of the football world when they beat Tampa Bay on Halloween. Doesn’t that feel like a lifetime ago now?

It was already hard for the Saints offense to put up points but with Trautman out, prepare for the offense to struggle even more. I know we all had our issues with Trautman — and they were all reasonable — but after the game he had on Sunday, this injury really, really blows.