The New Orleans Saints will host the San Francisco 49ers for joint practices in training camp and play the reigning NFC champions a few days later in Week 2 of the preseason, multiple sources said this week.
The game will be played at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, California, and is being considered for a nationally televised spot in prime time, sources said.
The Saints are expected to open the preseason against the Arizona Cardinals at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, on the weekend of Aug. 9-12, satisfying the club's request to the NFL to play their first two preseason games relatively close to their training camp location at the University of California-Irvine.
The Saints are expected to break camp after the 49ers game and return to New Orleans, where they will play their final preseason game in the Caesars Superdome the weekend of Aug. 22-25.
The Saints’ regular-season schedule will be announced Wednesday when the NFL releases the entire 2024 slate. The league typically announces its full preseason schedule with dates and times a few weeks after the regular-season slate is announced.
The joint practices against the 49ers likely will take place a couple of days before the preseason game. The official dates and times of the workouts will be announced later this summer.
In Irvine, the Saints will practice on Crawford Field at the UC Irvine Athletics Complex, which hosted the Rams from 2016-19 and 2021-23. The Saints needed a different location because of a construction project on a new cafeteria at the team’s Metairie training complex.
The Saints are familiar with the area, having conducted joint workouts with the Chargers five times in the past seven years.
The Saints are one of five teams that will train in Southern California this year. The Las Vegas Raiders will practice in Costa Mesa, about 3 miles away from Irvine. The Chargers are moving their camp to their new training facility in El Segundo. The Cowboys have trained in Oxnard for several years.
The Rams will hold training camp in Southern California but have not made an announcement on the exact location. Offseason workouts are taking place at California Lutheran College in Thousand Oaks, where their facility has been since 2016, but they are moving to Woodland Hills at some point this year.
Because the Rams and Chargers own the marketing rights to the area, the Saints' workouts in Irvine likely will be open to only season-ticket holders, VIPs and sponsors. Saints president Dennis Lauscha said last week the team is still trying to determine whether the practices will be open to the public.
The Cowboys are allowed to open their practices to the public because they started training in the area before the Rams and Chargers relocated to Los Angeles.
The competition against the 49ers will be a good gauge for the Saints. The 49ers feature perennial Pro Bowlers Nick Bosa, Deebo Samuel, George Kittle and Christian McCaffrey. They are coming off a 12-5 season in which they advanced to the Super Bowl for the second time in five seasons. They have won the second-most games (54) in the NFC since 2019 and played in the NFC championship four times during that span.
The workouts will be a reunion for a couple of new Saints. First-year offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak served as the passing-game coordinator for the 49ers last season. Defensive end Chase Young played the final nine games of last season in San Francisco after being traded from Washington.
In recent years, the Saints have practiced against the Chargers, Texans, Patriots and Jaguars. This will be the first time they've worked against the 49ers.
