Chase Young spent last season reminding the league why he went No. 2 overall in 2020, and the Saints are betting that wasn’t just a nice run - it was the start of something bigger.
New Orleans enters 2026 with plenty of young names worth tracking, but the most intriguing piece might be the veteran edge rusher who finally looked like the player people expected six years ago. After a career-high 10 sacks in just 12 games, Young has become one of the clearest reasons for optimism as the Saints get ready for their Sept. 13 opener against the Detroit Lions.
The raw production jumps off the page. Young missed the first five games of 2025 with a calf injury, then started every game he played after that.
In 12 appearances, he piled up 38 tackles, 10 sacks, 11 tackles for loss, 15 quarterback hits, two forced fumbles and three fumble recoveries. One of those recoveries went back for a touchdown.
The sacks and tackles for loss were both career bests.
And the finish was even louder than the season line. Over his final four games, Young delivered five sacks, seven quarterback hits and six tackles for loss, while also scooping up a fumble for a touchdown.
New Orleans won three of those four. That wasn’t empty production in meaningless time - he was actively blowing up game plans down the stretch.
A big reason for the turnaround was the fit. Young found a home at edge rusher in defensive coordinator Brandon Staley’s 3-4 scheme, and the Saints let him attack instead of asking him to do too much. At 6-foot-5 with power and burst, he was built to hunt quarterbacks from the start, and New Orleans leaned into that.
Staley said during the offseason that Young had made a major step toward becoming a "feature, premium player" in the league. That kind of language matters, especially for a player whose career has not always tracked the way it looked like it would when he won NFL Defensive Rookie of the Year in 2020.
The path here hasn’t been smooth. Young tore his ACL in his second season and later had neck surgery shortly after joining the Saints in 2024.
But now he’s healthy, productive and in a system that seems designed to get the best out of him. That’s the kind of setup that can change a defense.
The only real question hanging over him is the same one that has followed him for years: can he stay on the field? Young has played in 72 regular-season games with 44 starts over six NFL seasons, and last year’s breakout still came with five missed games.
Talent has never been the issue. Availability has.
That’s why it’s easy to look at 10 sacks in 12 games and wonder what the full version might look like over a healthy 17-game season. Nobody should be rushing to a 15-sack prediction, but the ceiling is obvious.
And Young won’t be doing it alone. Cameron Jordan posted 10.5 sacks in 2025, his first double-digit sack season since 2021, and Carl Granderson added six.
Stack Young’s 10 next to Jordan’s 10.5 and the Saints suddenly have real edge pressure on both sides. With Jordan entering his 16th and final season in New Orleans, there’s also a clear sense of transition built into the year.
Young has a chance to become the next anchor in that front.
The Saints still need Tyler Shough to develop. They still need Chris Olave to keep producing. They still need the rookies to grow fast.
But if New Orleans is going to turn into one of those teams nobody enjoys facing on Sunday, a healthy Chase Young off the edge is a pretty strong place to start. He already showed last season that he can still be a problem for quarterbacks. Now the question is whether he can make that level of disruption the norm.
In Other News...
Saints Fans Should Start Watching LSU For One Very Familiar Reason
The Saints pipeline to Baton Rouge has been a little easier to follow lately, and it is not hard to see why Louisiana football fans are paying attention. New Orleans has leaned into familiar roots in free agency, adding players with local ties, while LSU keeps producing talent that fits the kind of roster-building the Saints need as they look ahead. After LSUs convincing win over Clemson, the conversation around that team got even more interesting for Saints watchers.
Three names in particular stand out as possible future fits: Jordan Ross, Whit Weeks and TreyDez Green. They are still a long way from the NFL Draft, with 2027 the target, but each brings something the Saints could use down the line as they sort through positional needs and keep an eye on the next wave of LSU prospects. For now, it is another reminder that if you want to get a sense of where the Saints might shop next, the answer could be in plain sight on Saturdays in Baton Rouge. [Read more 🡒]
Former Rams DT Keeps Finding His Way Back Into The NFL
Jonah Williams is back on the Saints practice squad, another familiar stop in a career that has taken the veteran defensive tackle through plenty of NFL doorways. Kellen Moore announced the re-signing, adding a player New Orleans already knows well after Williams spent time with the team in 2025 and carved out a role on the interior defensive line.
Williams, 30, has long been one of those players who keeps finding a way to stick in the league, cycling through practice squads and futures deals with the Rams, Vikings, Lions and Cardinals along the way. His return gives the Saints another experienced option up front, and it also leaves open the question of whether this latest stay is just another brief stop or the start of something more lasting. [Read more 🡒]
Saints No. 6 Suddenly Carries Far More Meaning This Season
The jersey number has not exactly been one of the Saints most famous identifiers over the years, but that is starting to change. As New Orleans prepares to open its 2026 regular season against the Lions, Tyler Shough is set to enter his second year as the unquestioned starter, and the No. 6 on his back suddenly carries a much different feel than it ever did for punters Tommy Barnhardt and Thomas Morstead, the short-lived cluster of kickers who wore it in 2021, or recent defenders Marcus Maye and Willie Gay.
Shough, drafted in 2025, is the first quarterback in franchise history to wear No. 6, which gives the number a new place in the Saints identity if he becomes what the organization believes he can be. For a team that has seen the number bounce from special teams to the secondary and linebacker spots, this season is the first real chance for No. 6 to mean something bigger than a roster detail, and the opener will be the first test of how that new significance looks on the field. [Read more 🡒]