New Orleans Saints quarter back Jameis Winston (2) stretches during organized team activities at the Saints practice facility in Metairie, La. Thursday, May 26, 2022. (Photo by Max Becherer, NOLA.com, The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)

New Orleans Saints quarter back Jameis Winston (2) stretches during organized team activities at the Saints practice facility in Metairie, La. Thursday, May 26, 2022. (Photo by Max Becherer, NOLA.com, The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate)

The Jameis Winston that took the field at the New Orleans Saints practice facility Thursday is not exactly the same Jameis Winston who was last seen being helped off the Superdome turf with a season-ending knee injury.

First, there’s the sturdy brace wrapped around his left knee, helping support the surgically repaired ACL. That’s mandatory for the time being, and Winston believes it’ll be there when the regular season comes around.

“It’s nothing limiting, it’s nothing that really bothers you,” Winston said.

Second is the hair. It’s long, maybe as long as it’s ever been. That, Winston believes, will not persist when the games come around. He’s been growing his hair out as sort of a way to remind himself how long its been since the last time he played, and he plans to continue growing it until he sees the field for a real game again.

And Thursday was an impressive first step toward that end.

Alvin Kamara wasn’t on the practice field this week with the New Orleans Saints.

Less than seven months removed from that injury that ended his promising 2021 season, Winston was back on the practice field leading the Saints through organized team activities. He is not yet fully recovered and there are still things he has not been cleared to do, but he was there and that alone was important.

“Jameis is going to defy all the odds,” quarterbacks coach Ronald Curry said. “He’s been working since Day 1, pushing the envelope. We’ve got to kind of hold him back.”

Right now, that means no full sprints, and not much running of any kind. Winston said he is limiting himself to drop back passing and avoiding rollouts. He appeared to walk with a slight limp at times. There are still some elements of his toolbox that the Saints medical staff have placed out of his reach for his own safety.

“We’re going to continue to push to get him better, but be smart about it,” head coach Dennis Allen said.

When he takes his drops, though, he is taking them as he normally would. And his throwing arm appears no worse for wear.

“I tried to catch a deep ball from him the other day and he overthrew me,” rookie receiver Chris Olave said. “That’s when I knew his arm was there.”

The thing that hurt the most about his torn ACL, Winston said, was not the injury itself. It was that the injury forced him to cleave himself from the rest of the team. He isolated and recovered as the Saints stumbled to a 4-6 finish without him in the lineup.

That is partially why he was out there Thursday.

Though it would have been understandable for Winston to be there in spirit, to watch from the sideline until he was fully cleared to move in every way, he wanted to be fully involved at the first possible moment.

“I definitely have a certain type of ownership about it,” Winston said. “But it’s really just the gratitude that I get to play this game, and that’s the beautiful thing about football. Every part matters — the rehab matters, the progress of getting back to full speed matters, the reps with the young guys, the reps with anybody that I can possibly get a rep with, it matters.”

It matters not just for Winston, Curry said, but for the other players around him.

For the first time in years, Winston is going into a season as the undisputed starting quarterback. By being on the field, Curry said Winston sent a signal to the rest of the team — about the health of his knee, yes, but also the psyche that led him back to the field in such a short time.

“Him being here, his presence — not only him working, just him being here — it says a lot about the person, a lot about where he’s trying to go,” Curry said. “He’s a team-first guy, he’s doing whatever he can to help the team and the guys around him.”

May 31 will make seven months from the day Winston initially suffered his injury, when he left the field on a cart and later celebrated a team win by dancing on crutches in the locker room.

And the crazy part is, when his teammates went back out there on the field for the first official activity of the offseason, they weren’t even shocked to see him there.

“Am I surprised? No. Absolutely not,” offensive guard Cesar Ruiz said. “... I know him, that’s exactly what I’m expecting.”

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Email Luke Johnson at ljohnson@theadvocate.com.

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