Saints approach most important part of preseason

METAIRIE – The New Orleans Saints held a light workout indoors Saturday afternoon, less than 24 hours after their 20-15 preseason loss to Arizona.

Following a full practice Sunday morning, they will break training camp.

“We’ll be on a normal A-schedule with a Saints-on-Saints practice,” coach Sean Payton said after practice. “Then after the player’s day off (Monday), we’ll shift gears and begin working on the Chargers.”

New Orleans heads West to Los Angeles, where it will practice against the Chargers on Wednesday and Thursday in preparation for the preseason game between the two teams next Saturday.

Five days after that the Saints conclude the preseason by facing the Los Angeles Rams on Aug. 30 in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.

It’s the most intense period of the preseason, leading right up to the completion of the formation of the regular-season roster. It will provide the final chapters of the preseason, the evaluation of which Payton and his staff will use to reduce their roster from 90 players to the regular-season maximum of 53 by 3 p.m. on Sept. 1.

Rookie No. 1 draft choice Marcus Davenport is certain to make the roster, but he hasn’t been able to show much so far. That’s about to change.

Payton said after practice Saturday that the defensive end from Texas-San Antonio, who missed nearly three weeks because of a muscle pull, is going to have a busy week.

Davenport returned to practice on a limited basis Saturday. Payton had said Wednesday that the Saints were preparing to “ramp up” the rookie’s practice routine.

On Saturday, Payton said that ramping up will include Davenport participating in the practices against the Chargers before the rookie is expected to see his first NFL game action against the Chargers.

“He’s rehabbing and hopefully this week we’ll be able to get him back up and moving around,” Payton said. “It’s just about the assignment. He’ll know he’s been at practice and in the meetings. It is just making sure he’s 100 percent. But I anticipate that happening this week. I anticipate him being able to work this week and receive some playing time.”

Davenport’s work comes while veteran Alex Okafor, who is ahead of the rookie on the depth chart at right end, is sidelined for a few weeks because of a bone bruise in his knee and a sprained ankle suffered in practice last week.

Pro Bowl end Cameron Jordan, who has yet to play in the preseason, and Trey Hendrickson were the first-team ends in practice Saturday. Mitchell Loewen, who started with Hendrickson on Friday, and Al-Quadin Muhammad were the second-team ends at practice.

“He’s doing well,” Payton said of Hendrickson. “He’s active. I think he’s a guy that plays with a real good motor and he has some versatility.”

Payton’s initial impressions of the performance Friday didn’t change a whole lot after he walked the tape Saturday.

“I thought defensively we did a good job against the run,” he said. “I thought early in the game we did a good job forcing two three-and-outs. I thought as the game progressed we didn’t play the pass as well.

“I thought offensively, obviously the first thing you look at are the turnovers, so it’s hard to win a game. It’s hard to be productive offensively if you have four turnovers. So that part of it was sloppy. I thought the kicking game was pretty good. We had a couple decent returns and I thought we by-and-large covered pretty well.”