New Orleans Saints lose Erik McCoy for multiple weeks

The New Orleans Saints will be without the services of their starting center Erik McCoy for quite some time. McCoy left on the first drive of the Saint 38-3 beatdown of the Green Bay Packers with a leg injury. According to NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo, McCoy may be out until after the Saint’s week six bye.

McCoy’s career

McCoy was drafted by the New Orleans Saints with the 48th overall pick in the second round of the 2019 NFL draft. The Saints had to broker a trade with the Miami Dolphins, moving up from the 62nd pick, to take the center from Texas A&M. In his two years with New Orleans, he has started and played in every game at center and has played on more than 99 percent of the Saints’ offensive snaps. He was also named to the NFL’s All-Rookie team in 2019.

The six-foot-four, 314-pound McCoy was given a 70.1 rating last year from Pro Football focus, down from the 78.0 he received in his rookie year. They also highlighted his pass blocking ability, in college and at the pro level.

“McCoy’s smarts show up the most in pass protection,” wrote Austin Gayle of PFF, ahead of the 2019 draft. “He allowed just seven total pressures (three hurries, four hits) across his 470 pass-blocking snaps in 2018, and ended the year tied for fourth among draft-eligible centers in PFF’s pass-blocking efficiency (99.3).”

Last year on the Saints had 677 passing snaps, where he allowed 15 total pressures and just one sack.

The Saints other options

The Saints have an offensive lineman swiss army knife in Cesar Ruiz. He replaced McCoy in Sunday’s game at center, taking over for the rest of the game. Ruiz is another offensive line talent New Orleans has drafted recently. He was the 24th-overall pick in the first round from Michigan. With the Wolverines, he started games at both guard positions and center. And, he took care of the team’s long snapper responsibilities on special teams.

Ruiz is the likely replacement at center until McCoy returns. The Saints’ other center Will Clapp was placed on the team’s injured reserve list for an undisclosed reason last week. This just leaves Ruiz as New Orleans’ only available center on the active roster as of now.

New Orleans has signed Austin Reiter to their practice squad, formerly of the Kansas City Chiefs. Reiter was the Chiefs starting center when they won the Superbowl in 2019.

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