The New Orleans Saints made a surprising move on Wednesday, releasing veteran wide receiver Brandin Cooks. This move could potentially force Kellen Moore's hand to finally expand the passing attack beyond Chris Olave.
For one reason or another, Moore has refused to use a wide receiver not named Olave or Rashid Shaheed. Even when Shaheed was traded at the deadline, he didn't expand to the other wide receivers in the room. Losing his WR2 and WR3 in back-to-back weeks, Moore will have to do what he says and give the young guys on the team a shot.
All of the wide receivers on the team will have to step up now that Cooks is gone, unless they want to overload Olave. Devaughn Vele, Mason Tipton, and the recently called-up Kevin Austin Jr. will all have to take it up a notch.
Kellen Moore weighs in on who the Saints' top three receivers are now
When asked who he thinks might benefit from the additional playing time, Kellen Moore gave Mason Tipton a shout-out before anyone else. "I think naturally, Tipton is going to play a ton of football now," he said to the media. "We felt good about him; he had a phenomenal preseason. He's been a guy that we've felt good about, so this will provide him some opportunities to hop in there."
Continuing on, Moore said that Olave, Tipton, and Vele would "probably" be the team's new top three receivers while also hinting that some other players might get some snaps. "Obviously we got some other guys that will earn roles and earn more opportunities as we go. A number of other guys will be available to us," he said after Wednesday's practice. "We'll still have plenty of opportunities there."
Coming off of the bye week, it should be interesting to see which one of those three guys gets the most additional playing time against the Atlanta Falcons. One of them has to get more catches, or else they risk putting the Saints' season back on a downward trajectory.