Aaron Donald is back with the Los Angeles Rams after two years of retirement, and Odell Beckham Jr. returned to the New York Giants after a year away from football and countless teams from 2019-2024. It has some New Orleans Saints fans discussing which former players they’d like to return to the Saints. The Times Picayune’s Rod Walker got in on the fun and asked fans who’d they’d bring back, and why is in Michael Thomas?
In all seriousness, Walker encouraged fans to diversify their answers by prompting them to give two players if their answer was Thomas. Walker added two stipulations: the player has to be under the age of 40 and must be out of the league.
Question for #Saints fans.
— Rod Walker (@RodWalkerNola) August 31, 2026
With Aaron Donald and OBJ both back on NFL teams, what former Saints player no longer in the league would you like to see come back?
For this exercise, the player must be younger than 40.
And with Michael Thomas being the obvious answer, you have to…
MIchael Thomas would take the Saints to a new level and so would Terron Armstead
The correct answer is Thomas. Everyone knows it, and it has nothing to do with the way the current roster is set up. The wide receiver room hasn't had this level of talent and potential in it in years.
There's not a Michael Thomas in the room.
In a perfect world, we would have already seen a healthy Michael Thomas and Chris Olave play together for an extended period. In reality, they shared the field for three games in 2022 and 10 games in 2023, but none of those games featured peak Thomas.
Even with Olave and Jordyn Tyson on this team, Thomas is simply too good to pass up in a hypothetical situation. He's a reliable target, and the pairing of him and Tyler Shough would demolish the false notion that Thomas can't work downfield.
Thomas would give the offense a dominant, number one wide receiver who can be counted on regardless of the situation. He has sure hands and was an underrated route runner and run after the catch threat.
Outside of Drew Brees, there's a strong argument that Thomas has the highest peak, not career of any Saint this century.
Walker did say, though, if Thomas is the selection then he has to be joined by another player. That's where Ryan Ramczyk comes into play. Once again, this isn't an indictment of who is at the position already.
Taliese Fuaga can be a quality starting right tackle, but he's going into a huge year. He sunk into a sophomore slump, and now he's in a position where he has to prove himself in Year 3.
That's what made the difference between picking Ramczyk and Terron Armstead. Kelvin Banks Jr.'s stock is higher right now. That's why we pull in Ramczyk, a former All-Pro, for the job.
Ramczyk's only problem was health late in his career. Seeing that this is a fantasy situation, we'll also bank on full health.
Add us as a preferred source on Google