METAIRIE, La. — Drew Brees, Mark Ingram II and Adrian Peterson made their preseason debuts for the New Orleans Saints in their 13-0 victory against the Houston Texans Saturday in the Mercedes-Benz Superdome.
But the Saints’ first-team offense wasn’t impressive against one of the NFL’s better defenses.
Brees played nearly a half, directing five possessions that yielded a field goal and four punts. He completed 11-of-15 passes for 76 yards.
Ingram started and had four rushes for nine yards and caught two passes for 11 yards. Peterson, signed as a free agent from Minnesota in the offseason, finished with 15 yards on six carries.
“We had a set amount of plays we were going to play (offensive starters) last week,” head coach Sean Payton said after practice Monday. “I think we did a great job of really achieving our goals with regards to playing time. Obviously, we would have liked to have scored, but I don’t know if that will impact what we do here in this Week 4.”
The only potential offensive starters to sit out the game against the Texans were center Max Unger and rookie tackle Ryan Ramczyk. Unger was activated from the PUP list (offseason foot surgery) last week and has been scheduled to play in the preseason finale. Ramczyk left a joint practice with the Texans last Thursday because of an undisclosed injury.
Payton traditionally rests his most important players in the preseason finale. It will be interesting to see if he and Brees decide the starting offense needs more in-game work prior to the season opener at Minnesota on Sept. 11.
Payton said New Orleans likely will reduce its active roster from the maximum of 90 to “in the 80s” before the preseason finale against Baltimore on Thursday. Teams must reduce to the regular-season limit of 53 by Saturday.
“I bet there are eight or nine (or) double(-digit) players, guys that we’re discussing a lot of,” Payton said. “You can pencil, like most teams would be able to, a certain number and then still look this week and this game to make final decisions. You talk about it all the time. It’s not just in-house competition, it’s competition taking place with other people at their position on other rosters.”