Ouch. While Taysom Hill’s foot injury hasn’t kept him out of practice lately, it’s been severe enough to keep him from starting ahead of Trevor Siemian or seeing any of the usual gadget plays the New Orleans Saints like to draw up for him. And as first reported by NewOrleans.Football’s Nick Underhill (and confirmed Monday by the Times-Picayune | Advocate’s Jeff Duncan), Hill is dealing with a plantar fascia injury.
That may sound familiar: it’s the same injury that slowed down Drew Brees in 2021 (among other issues) and 2015, with former Saints tight end Jimmy Graham also limited by a partially-torn plantar fascia back in 2013. While these injuries don’t always require surgery, they can take six months or longer to fully recover from. It’s a painful condition inflaming the heel and forefoot and it makes sense that this is the reason Hill has been limited to a spectator in games.
What still doesn’t add up is that the Saints are sidelining Hill because of this injury but are fully prepared for him to play an entire game if, hypothetically, Siemian were to be injured on the first snap. They’ve made rookie draft pick Ian Book a healthy scratch the last two weeks with Hill watching the game without his helmet on as the only other active quarterback.
If something were to happen to Siemian and force Hill into a game for three quarters, would he just hand the ball off to someone else every play? What’s the logic here?
Hopefully Hill can gut it out to get on the field soon. The Saints have lost all four games Siemian has started since replacing Jameis Winston, and while a slight uptick in quarterback play won’t fix all their problems it sure would help. Their window to reaching the playoffs is getting slimmer by the week. A fifth consecutive loss to the Dallas Cowboys on Thursday night would be the longest losing streak of Sean Payton’s tenure. Hopefully the Saints have a plan to reverse this course.
