Chase Young is making the kind of impact that gets noticed fast in the NFL. Through three games, the Saints edge rusher has been piling up pressure, finishing plays, and showing why the buzz around him coming out of Ohio State never really went away.
The production is there in plain view. Young has 3.5 sacks, which ranks fourth in the league, and 15 pressures, good for 10th overall.
What makes that number stand out even more is that he’s done it while logging the third fewest pass rushes among the league’s top 10 pressure leaders. If not for being denied a sack against Jared Goff, he’d be sitting second in the league in sacks.
Young’s biggest leap came in 2025, when he turned those pressure totals into results and posted his first 10-sack season. Now the question is less about whether he can create havoc and more about whether he can keep this level going and stay healthy over a full season. That part won’t be settled until the year is over, but early on, he’s been one of the league’s most effective pass rushers.
What really separates him right now is when he’s making those plays. Young has been at his best on the downs that matter most, and that showed up again last week against the Raiders.
In the fourth quarter, on the Raiders’ final true offensive possession, he produced a strip sack. The ball bounced off a helmet and landed with a Raider, but the play still had major game-changing potential.
The Saints were already in a rough spot offensively, having turned the ball over on three straight possessions. A recovery there could have flipped the momentum right back.
Even without it, the sack gave New Orleans one last shot to tie the game. If the Raiders had picked up a first down there, they could have run out the clock.
That kind of timing has become a theme. Of Young’s 15 pressures, 10 have come on third down, according to NextGen Stats.
That leads the league. It also means two-thirds of his pressures have come in critical spots, and all but one of his sacks have come on third down.
That’s the stuff that turns a strong pass rusher into a difference-maker. Young isn’t just filling up the box score. He’s showing up when the Saints need a stop, and that’s a big reason he’s looking more and more like one of the NFL’s top edge rushers.
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Saints Face Falcons In A Superdome Night That Means More
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Atlanta enters a nationally televised spot with Kevin Stefanski acknowledging both the challenge of the environment and the emotional weight surrounding the night. For the Saints, it is the kind of occasion that gives a regular-season game extra texture, with the atmosphere, the history and the rivalry all pressing together at once. [Read more 🡒]