METAIRIE, La. (WGNO) — New Orleans Saints safety Tyrann Mathieu made his training camp debut on Wednesday, taking first-team reps in the walkthrough and practicing for about an hour before sitting out the 7-on-7 and team drill portions of practice.
After his first day of camp, head coach Dennis Allen called his return to the team encouraging.
“I love having him back. It was great to see him last night, got in last night. Had a chance to visit with him at the hotel. Seems to be in really good spirits. He’s anxious to kind of get back here and get started. We’ll go through a little bit of a ramp-up period with him. Kind of let him get his feet up under him, but man, to have a player of his decorated ability back in the building is a positive,” says New Orleans Saints head coach Dennis Allen.
Mathieu was excused from the start of camp to tend to a personal family matter.
Allen says the six days he did miss won’t be detrimental to his growth with the team.
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“When you really want to talk about what we’re doing defensively from a schematic standpoint, it’s not a lot different than what you’re going to see in a lot of the other teams. Really it gets more down to just terminology, and just some of the minor little adjustments we might make. So, I feel like he’ll get back in the swing of things there and it won’t take long. It’s more about getting him ready for football conditioning,” says Allen.
The Saints return to practice tomorrow morning at 9 a.m.