Saints and 49ers cancel joint practices, and that could ultimately benefit fans

This upcoming week of training camp was supposed to be a big one for the New Orleans Saints. The team had scheduled joint practices with the San Francisco 49ers. With San Francisco being one of the best teams in the league in recent years, coming off a Super Bowl appearance last season, the practices were going to be a great opportunity for New Orleans to compete against an elite team.

Unfortunately, the teams have decided to cancel the joint practices, which were originally scheduled for Thursday, August 15 and Friday August 16. According to ESPN’s Nick Wagoner, the cancellation is a result of all the injuries the 49ers are currently dealing with. Wagoner pointed out how 23 players missed practice on Thursday for San Francisco.

49ers and Saints cancel joint practices because of injury

These two teams are still set to play a preseason game against each other on Sunday, but they wanted to get some work in before the game. Teams typically do this as a way to get extended reps for everyone in a controlled environment. Working with other franchises, both teams are able to design the ideal practice for increased competition and evaluation.

Unfortunately for these two teams, they will miss out on that this week. However, this cancellation could ultimately be good for fans. When teams have joint practices ahead of a preseason game, starters are usually held out of the game because the team already saw enough best-on-best reps with the opposing team throughout the week.

Since that won’t be happening for the Saints and 49ers this week, fans have a good chance of seeing their team’s best players on the field in the second week of the preseason. It’s still just the preseason, so the starters won’t take many reps, but fans will be able to see more than they would of the teams in practice.

Of course, this availability still hinges on health, which is clearly an issue for San Francisco right now, so there will still be a bit of a wait to see who will all play on Sunday.

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