Saints, Rams work out logistics, to have joint apply Thu.

IRVINE, Calif. — The New Orleans Saints and Los Angeles Rams will hold a newly scheduled joint practice at Dignity Health Sports Park in Carson, California, on Thursday.

Saints coach Kellen Moore said the Rams will act as the host of the practice, which will begin at 11 a.m. PT and will be closed to the public.

“I think going against guys you haven’t seen, different techniques, different skills, I think that’s big,” Saints tight end Juwan Johnson said. “… I think it’s very beneficial, as long as guys stay healthy, I think it’s going to be great.”

The Saints have been practicing at UC Irvine since Aug. 7. This trip to California was planned to allow the team to practice away from the Louisiana heat.

The Saints had a preseason game against the Los Angeles Chargers on Sunday and will return home in time Friday to host the Jacksonville Jaguars in their second preseason game Sunday.

The Saints and Rams had been working through the logistics of joint practices for several days, but Moore did not confirm the practice until Wednesday, wanting to see what the health of the team looked like after its first preseason game.

“It’s been our goal to see if we could make it work and, so I’m excited to be at this point,” Moore said.

The Rams had been scheduled to hold a joint practice this week with the Chargers, but that was canceled due to injury concerns for Jim Harbaugh’s team.

Moore said Thursday’s practice will allow teams to run their first-team units against each other.

“It’ll be a heavy 1’s-oriented practice,” Moore said. “It’ll be a great opportunity for our guys to compete against some really good players. They’ve got a really, really good team that made a deep run in the playoffs.”

The Saints and Rams play each other in Week 9 of the regular season, something Los Angeles defensive coordinator Chris Shula said was a unique challenge.

“We typically don’t do this against teams that we play against,” Shula said. “So how much do you want to show but you still want to run your stuff and test your rules. It’s always that fine balance similar to some of the preseason games. So yeah, it is a challenge. This time of year, it’s one of those August preseason problems you’re dealing with.”

Moore said that issue was discussed when putting together the practice, but ultimately not considered a huge concern.

“We talked about that, it’s the back half … we’re probably going to have a good feel for what both of us are doing at that point,” Moore said.