Important news for Michael Thomas and the Saints offense.

NFL.com's Ian Rapoport reported:

Sources: #Saints star WR Michael Thomas is expected to miss the start of the 2021 season after undergoing surgery to repair the ligaments in his ankle in June. Based on the timing of the surgery – and recommended 4 months of recovery – Thomas could be on the sideline for weeks.

— Ian Rapoport (@RapSheet) July 23, 2021

Here's our Sigmund Bloom with an update:

Michael Thomas's offseason appeared to be going well after it was expected that he had ankle surgery right after the season when he participated in June OTAs. Still, he must have had a setback or perhaps not had the surgery and hoped rest would heal the injury, requiring additional surgery or a new surgery that will certainly cost him some regular-season games. A solid estimate based on a four-month timeline to return reported by Ian Rapoport would have Thomas missing six games, but if the team puts him on the PUP list to start the season, he will miss at least six games, so that might be conservative. It's difficult to recommend taking Thomas any earlier than the eighth round, and even that could be optimistic.

TreQuan Smith, Marquez Callaway, and Adam Trautman all will get more targets on this news. Still, Mike Garafolo reports that the Saints will be looking at free agents, and with players like Kenny Stills, Danny Amendola, and Golden Tate out there, the increased target shares for the youngsters could be short-lived. Trautman already has a group of fantasy players willing to reach for him out of the belief of a breakout season impending, so that price will go up even more. Smith is worth a bench spot, and Callaway could actually be the most frequently targeted of the three, so keep him on your waiver wire watch list. It's possible that this issue could skew Sean Payton's quarterback decision towards Taysom Hill since the passing game will be de-emphasized without Thomas, but more likely that the competition will still be decided on the training camp and preseason field.

Last night on our live show, Dr. Jene Bramel specifically mentioned Thomas as a player he was going to be monitoring at the open of camp because the nature of his offseason ankle surgery suggested a 4-6 month timeline to return that he clearly beat by being on the field for OTAs in June. He said, "I would have had no problem if he did nothing in the offseason...also had that large ligament on the inside of his ankle addressed and that turns into a 4-6 month recovery...you hope that he didn't have any setbacks.

This morning, this is how we had projected the Saints offense for 2021. And this was how we'd projected all the wide receivers for the year before this news. We'll be updating here in a few minutes.

We'll have lots more on this tonight in the Email Update and, of course, on the site just as we did for the Cam Akers situation for Los Angeles. If you'd like to dive deep with everything we do at Footballguys, please check out the Premium Subscriptions, where we give you everything we've got to help you win more at fantasy football. As always, there's a 30-day moneyback guarantee, so there's zero risk.

Thanks for being part of the Footballguys Family, and thanks for sharing part of your season with us.