It’s official, we now know why DeShawn Wynn was signed: Chris Ivory has an injury that will prevent him from playing in the playoffs. Ivory injured his ankle against Tampa and was reportedly seen walking in a cast this week. Evidently the injury must be serious enough that the Saints don’t want to conserve hope he can return, so they have placed him on injured reserve. This is a massive blow to the Saints’ running game, which has been largely anemic in the last 3-4 weeks. Ivory had just made a return from a hamstring injury to look really good against Tampa, before this new injury occurred. As good as Ivory has been this year, this was his rep coming out of college: great talent, phenominal back, but often injured. He couldn’t stay healthy for any of his four seasons in college, twice sustaining season ending injuries early on. While most of us will view Ivory’s rookie season as an incredibly promising one, his struggles to stay healthy in this just his rookie season have to be incredibly troubling given his history. Ivory finishes the season with 716 yards rushing which led the team.
We now have to largely rest our hopes with Reggie Bush, who did a terrific job running the ball this past week. It remains to be seen how much Pierre Thomas can contribute after he suffered a setback to his ankle that has bothered him all season. To hope that Thomas can become the lead back this week and shoulder the running game load would be incredibly optimistic. Unfortunately, the Bush and Julius Jones tandem should get plenty of looks on Saturday. Before you freak out too much, this is still a winnable game for the Saints, and they just need to take it a week at a time and hope Pierre Thomas can recover. Remember that they won the Super Bowl without Chris Ivory last year.
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