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When I first started reading your post, I was ready to roll my eyes but you’re 100% correct.Some of this is on Thomas, but 90% of this is on the team. Initially, I put 90% of the blame for the delay in surgery on Thomas, but the more I thought about it, the more I shifted the blame/responsibility to the team. You have a top 5 to top 10 player at his position in the league. He's injured throughout the season. You know that he likely needs surgery and that the recovery time and rehab time will be months. You "assign" a staff member to be responsible for file file follow-up with the player AND his doctors. You have the player sign a consent form that gives the team total rights to speak with and consult with his doctors. He's a $100 million man. This is not some UDFA walk on type. The Saints were VERY negligent on this. Ultimately this is the Head Coaches responsibility. He has nobody to blame but himself.
I look at it slightly different, I don’t see it as 40% Saints & 60% Thomas or 30/70 or 90/10…. it’s 100%/100%
Thomas is a grown arse man and I guarantee if you tried to tell him something, he would let you know that! It’s 100% on him to be responsible and meet his obligations.
In addition, you run a billion dollar business and one of your most important assets has an issue and you don’t bother to check up and CONFIRM everything is on schedule? That’s a 100% failure on the Saints.
So yea, I’m mad at Thomas but when Payton tries to act mad at Thomas, I would ask Payton what he did to make sure this didn’t happen.