Travis Etienne is back on the field, and the New Orleans Saints are at least leaving the door open for him to suit up Sunday against the Carolina Panthers.
Etienne practiced Wednesday for the first time since he hurt his hamstring in a Week 3 loss to the Las Vegas Raiders. The Saints still want to see how the week unfolds before making anything official, but getting him back into practice was a meaningful step.
“There’s some potential for (him to play), but we’ll just let the week take its course,” coach Kellen Moore said.
The timing matters. Etienne has been out for six weeks, and that stretch included the Saints’ bye week.
He was eligible to come off injured reserve last week against the Browns, but New Orleans chose to wait another week before putting him back on the practice field. Now that he has returned, the team has 21 days to activate him from injured reserve.
New Orleans brought Etienne in on a $52 million contract this offseason to add some juice to a rushing attack that has lacked it in recent years. His numbers before the injury were modest, but the Saints have clearly missed him. Even after sitting out the last five games, Etienne’s 128 rushing yards are only 34 shy of team leader Tyler Shough, who has 162.
That’s with Etienne logging only 30 carries over the first three games.
“When we were rolling early on this season and in training camp, it was hard to stop him,” Shough said. “We’ve got to get him those touches and get him back going. I’m excited to have him back.”
Etienne also fits what New Orleans wants to do on the ground. The Saints have leaned on zone concepts this season, though they’ve mixed in more man and gap blocking in some matchups depending on the opponent. Moore pointed to Etienne’s ability to thrive in that kind of system.
“There’s some explosiveness that Travis has,” Moore said. “He’s a really balanced runner, and his ability to make that one cut - in particular when you see those zone-cut schemes - his ability to get to the backside when needed, he does a really good job of that.”
If Etienne is cleared, he’ll walk into a backfield that looks a lot different than it did a few weeks ago.
After Pittsburgh held New Orleans to its worst rushing output in a single game since 1999, the Saints made major changes coming out of the bye. They fired run-game coordinator T.J. Paganetti, claimed Audric Estimé off waivers and moved on from 2023 third-round pick Kendre Miller.
The Saints also altered how they were running the ball. Against the Browns, they used more jumbo sets with six offensive linemen than they had all season, and they spread their rushing game across both man- and zone-blocking looks more than before.
The results were immediate. Estimé ripped off runs of 18, 5 and 9 yards on his first three carries - matching the number of runs of 9 or more yards that Miller had in 57 attempts - and finished with 72 rushing yards and a touchdown.
He wasn’t the only one finding room. Shough ran for 51 yards on 10 carries, while Alvin Kamara produced 32 yards on six attempts and averaged a season-best 5.3 yards per carry.
That came against a Cleveland defense that ranks sixth-worst against the run and has allowed 38 runs of 10 or more yards, more than every team except the Las Vegas Raiders.
Now the Saints get another defense that has struggled to slow the ground game. Carolina is giving up 133.4 rushing yards per game and has surrendered an NFL-high 13 rushing touchdowns. In three games this season, an NFL team has gone for 250 rushing yards or more, and the Panthers were on the field for two of them.
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