Michael Thomas - Injury History

What You Need to Know:

• Thomas missed all of last season with an ankle injury that originally occurred all the way back in Week 1 of 2020.
• That season, he missed the next 6 games after getting hurt in the win over Tampa Bay, part of that due to a hamstring injury sustained in practice. Thomas then returned for 6 more, playing less than 70% of the snaps in 3 of them (well below his normal), missed 3 more and finally returned for limited performance in 2 playoff contests.
• Thomas didn’t have surgery until June 2021, getting 2 ligaments repaired in his left ankle. He announced before last season that a “small setback” would keep him out for the year.
• The ankle still wasn’t ready for OTAs or minicamp this spring. New HC Dennis Allen said he expects Thomas to be ready for training camp.
• When Thomas did play in 2020, his performance was noticeably down, including career lows in yards per route run and catch rate.
• He finished 2019 as Pro Football Focus’ top-graded WR. Thomas also ranked 2nd in 2018, 1st in 2017 and 6th as a 2016 rookie.
• His ranks in YPRR among WRs with 30+ targets:
  • T-15th in 2016
  • 4th in 2017
  • 3rd in 2018
  • 1st in 2019
  • 27th (out of 117) in 2020
• Thomas has caught 77.6% of his targets since entering the league, tops among wideouts. Among 110 WRs who have seen at least 200 targets over that span, just 7 others have cracked 70%. Thomas has exceeded 80% in catch rate twice through 5 seasons.
• He finished each of those 1st 4 seasons among the top 7 PPR wideouts, including a dominant #1 overall season in 2019.
• This will be Thomas’ 1st season without Drew Brees as New Orleans’ primary QB.
• He garnered 31.8% of Saints targets in his last full season, for a 2019 Saints team that sported 14 games of Alvin Kamara, 14 games of Jared Cook and a 34-year-old Ted Ginn Jr. as the next 3 in targets.
• The Saints drafted WR Chris Olave 11th overall this year and signed WR Jarvis Landry in free agency.
• Jameis Winston – barring a setback in his recovery from an ACL tear – is set to start. He sports a 61.2% career completion rate, compared with Brees’ 68.8% with the Saints. Winston likes throwing downfield more than Brees, though. His career 10.8-yard average depth of target leads Brees by 2.8, according to PFF. Brees checked in short of 8.0 in ADOT each of his final 5 seasons, including marks of just 6.9 and 6.5 in his final 2.
• Saints WR Michael Thomas took part in 1-on-1 drills Friday for the 1st time in training camp and impressed. "He looks exactly like he used to look, before the ankle injury," writes Luke Johnson of NOLA.com.

Draft Sharks Bottom Line:

It is impossible to know what Thomas will look like until we see him back on the field. He’ll present risk even when he gets there, of course, after multiple setbacks in his path back from an ankle injury that initially appeared in Week 1 of 2020. Adding to the risk is a new QB who has been erratic when healthy (especially compared with Drew Brees) and is coming off an ACL tear.

Fortunately, drafters are collectively wary for just those reasons. Thomas is going low in WR3 territory in both FFPC and Underdog drafting as of this writing. That makes him worth considering, though there are too many questions for Thomas to be a “smash” pick even at that level.