Another former member of the New Orleans Saints has gone turncoat and joined the Carolina Panthers. ESPN’s Field Yates reported that wide receiver Tommylee Lewis signed with the Panthers after going through a free agent workout on Saturday, reuniting him with one-time Saints assistant Joe Brady and quarterback Teddy Bridgewater.
The Panthers have padded out their roster with castoffs and other Saints players, including practice squad wideout Keith Kirkwood and starting cornerback Eli Apple. If the Panthers can’t beat the Saints, then, well, they’re doing their best to become them. Brady is rebuilding the Panthers receiving corps from the ground up as offensive coordinator to first-year head coach Matt Rhule, so Lewis has as good a shot at earning playing time as anyone.
Lewis passed on an opportunity with the upstart XFL earlier this year to return to the Saints, having been drafted highly by the Dallas Renegades but instead opting to sign a reserve/futures contract with New Orleans for the 2020 season. But Lewis ended up placing among ten roster cuts to open Saints training camp when the team was forced to thin its roster down to 80 players from 90 per the NFL’s new COVID-19 rules and protocols.
Listed at just 5-foot-7 and 168 pounds, the 27-year old Lewis did more work on special teams than offense with the Saints from 2016 to 2018. Including the playoffs, he appeared in 38 games, returning 41 punts for 360 yards and 24 kicks for 528 return yards. When he did take the field with the Saints offense, he caught 20 of 29 passes for 252 receiving yards, scoring two touchdowns, and logged 8 rushing attempts for another 31 yards.
His only target in the postseason is the most infamous of his career, having been blatantly fouled with both pass interference and a helmet-to-helmet hit by Los Angeles Rams cornerback Nickell Robey-Coleman in the 2018 NFC Championship Game. But the NFL’s “all-star” postseason officiating crew decided it was clean, and the Rams were helped into Super Bowl LIII, which they lost 13-3. Maybe Lewis should have sold the illegal hit better?
