Latest / AFR Saints / Chase Young Sees Saints Breakout Coming: Offensive & Defensive Growth Could Push New Orleans Over Win Total

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Chase Young Sees Saints Breakout Coming: Offensive & Defensive Growth Could Push New Orleans Over Win Total · AFR Saints

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  Speaker 1: full round. Book your tea time today. Golf dot Breck
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  Speaker 1: dot org. Golf dot Breck dot org. Chase Young is
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  Speaker 1: a is a really interesting character in the New Orleans
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  Speaker 1: Saints on the New Orleans States roster right now. For
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  Speaker 1: a lot of reasons, right. I mean, he was so
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  Speaker 1: dominant Ohio. Stage was the number two pick of the draft.
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  Speaker 1: He was the defensive rookie of the year. And then
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  Speaker 1: the injuries came, and then he gets traded and then
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  Speaker 1: goes to San Francisco, and then he's a free agent
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  Speaker 1: and signs in New Orleans, and that in and of
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  Speaker 1: itself was surprising. And then he re signed with New Orleans. Yeah,
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  Speaker 1: after sort of approve it deal when he could have
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  Speaker 1: Thelorrey gone somewhere else and played for a more contending team.
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  Speaker 1: But he's chosen to stay in New Orleans. But do
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  Speaker 1: you remember last year what the biggest Chase Young storyline was.
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  Speaker 1: Chase Young missed the first five games of last season
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  Speaker 1: with that calf injury. Do you remember that, Like they're
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  Speaker 1: going through preseason and all of a sudden boom, he
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  Speaker 1: pops up he's got a calf injury, and then oh,
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  Speaker 1: you know, he'll be fine. Then he's not playing Week one,
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  Speaker 1: and then he's not playing Week two, and he's not
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  Speaker 1: playing Week three. And the problem is, like they didn't
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  Speaker 1: put him on IR maybe because you put him on
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  Speaker 1: short term i ARE and then you could have activated
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  Speaker 1: him after four weeks. Well, they chose not to do that,
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  Speaker 1: and you could have Remember if you had put him
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  Speaker 1: on short term i AR, it would have freed up
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  Speaker 1: that roster spot for somebody else while Chase Shung was out,
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  Speaker 1: So the implication there was they expected him to be
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  Speaker 1: back within four weeks. Well, he ends up missing five games. Well,
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  Speaker 1: despite missing five games, Chase Hung still had a fantastic season. Now,
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  Speaker 1: while he was out, Saints started zero to four and
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  Speaker 1: then won their first game of the season in Week
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  Speaker 1: five against the Giants. So they started one in four
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  Speaker 1: with Chase Hung out and then he returned and they
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  Speaker 1: lost their next four. I'm not saying that there's that
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  Speaker 1: correlation necessarily equals causation. There only they lost because Chase
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  Speaker 1: Hung was out, or they lost because Chay Hung was back.
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  Speaker 1: It's just they were not a very good team. But
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  Speaker 1: there they finished strong last year, which is why a
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  Speaker 1: lot of people have more optimism going into twenty twenty six.
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  Speaker 1: And Chase Hung was a guest on the Insiders and
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  Speaker 1: you know they asked him now that he's on his
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  Speaker 1: third team and he's he had a fantastic season, stayed
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  Speaker 1: healthy after the calf injury. If he's if he sort
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  Speaker 1: of found his home in New Orleans.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, man, I'm I'm definitely blessed. I found an organization
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  Speaker 2: that believes in me, you know that that has my back,
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  Speaker 2: and you know, a coach like Coach Staley who believes
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  Speaker 2: in me, and uh, you know, as a player, that's
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  Speaker 2: all I need.
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  Speaker 1: It's great to hear any Look, he's under contract, he's
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  Speaker 1: not going anywhere. But he was also a massively productive guy.
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  Speaker 1: And as we mentioned, it was for the Saints a
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  Speaker 1: year that defensively they got much better. And when you
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  Speaker 1: look at how the season started for New Orleans last year.
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  Speaker 1: I mean it was a rough go, not just with
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  Speaker 1: the zero to four start, but defensively they were atrocious
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  Speaker 1: at times in the early part of the season. They
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  Speaker 1: remember the game at Seattle where I mean it was
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  Speaker 1: like Murphy's Law. Everything they could go wrong did go
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  Speaker 1: wrong for New Orleans against the Seahawks. And it wasn't
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  Speaker 1: just the game against Seattle. They they allowed forty four
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  Speaker 1: to Seattle, They allowed thirty one against Buffalo, they lost
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  Speaker 1: twenty six fourteen on the road against Chicago. There was
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  Speaker 1: the thirty four to ten behind whipping against the Rams. Well,
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  Speaker 1: Chase Young was asked late in the season down the
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  Speaker 1: stretch when the defense improved, what changed.
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  Speaker 2: I think it was the will just to keep pursuing right,
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  Speaker 2: just to stay consistent no matter what was going on,
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  Speaker 2: just keep our head down and keep fighting. The only
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  Speaker 2: thing that we can do was just to do all
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  Speaker 2: one to eleventh, and that was me doing my job,
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  Speaker 2: Cam doing his job, you know, Grando doing his job,
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  Speaker 2: and block out the noise, just keep going, and we
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  Speaker 2: found out that we can be a real good team.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, maybe it was that.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe it was blocking out the noise and being the
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  Speaker 1: one eleventh, or maybe you played a bunch of teams
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  Speaker 1: it's stunk.
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  Speaker 3: After you started one and eight.
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  Speaker 1: You played Atlanta who was eight and nine, Miami who
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  Speaker 1: finished seven and ten, Tampa who finished eight and nine,
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  Speaker 1: Carolina who finished eight and nine, the Jets who finished
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  Speaker 1: three and fourteen, Tennessee who finished three and fourteen, Atlanta
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  Speaker 1: who finished eight and nine. You finished after your one
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  Speaker 1: and eight start playing a bunch of teams that were
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  Speaker 1: sub five hundred and stunk. Of course, you were better
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  Speaker 1: against the bad teams. Did you notice I mentioned you
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  Speaker 1: gave up forty four to Seattle and thirty one to
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  Speaker 1: Buffalo and twenty six to Chicago and thirty four to
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  Speaker 1: the Rams. Yeah, you were playing really good teams and
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  Speaker 1: they kicked your ass.
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  Speaker 3: And then two things happened.
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  Speaker 1: Number One, the schedule lightened up, and number two, you
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  Speaker 1: inserted Tyler Shuck, and Tyler Shuck played really well. I'm
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  Speaker 1: not sitting here saying that the Saints aren't any good.
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  Speaker 1: I'm saying you can't ignore the fact that a big
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  Speaker 1: part of the success they had late in the season
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  Speaker 1: was the schedule they played. Now in total, this surprised
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  Speaker 1: me when I went back and looked this up, like, statistically,
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  Speaker 1: defense was actually pretty good a year ago, despite those
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  Speaker 1: numbers that I just rattled off, like, do you remember
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  Speaker 1: the Saints total dev I didn't remember this. Do you
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  Speaker 1: remember the Saints total de Paul muse? Do you remember
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  Speaker 1: the Saints total defense rank at the end of the year.
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  Speaker 3: Was it ten?
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  Speaker 1: I gave it away a little bit, saying it was
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  Speaker 1: better than I thought. There were ninth, ninth, ninth, and
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  Speaker 1: total defense. They were fourth in past defense, the fourth
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  Speaker 1: in past defense.
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  Speaker 3: With sugar Water McKinstry out there.
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  Speaker 1: Why well, because they weren't good against the run and
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  Speaker 1: teams generally had a lead against him and ran the
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  Speaker 1: ball and round the clock. They were nineteenth against the run,
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  Speaker 1: and they were sixteenth in scoring at twenty two points
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  Speaker 1: per game. But again, in the back half of your schedule,
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  Speaker 1: you in the final eight games, things lightened up considerably
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  Speaker 1: where you didn't play a team that finished with a
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  Speaker 1: winning record. So I looked at twenty twenty six and
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  Speaker 1: the fit is number one. You got the second easiest
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  Speaker 1: schedule by winning percentage by your opponent's winning percentage from
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  Speaker 1: last year, the second easiest schedule in the NFL.
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  Speaker 3: You've got Tyler shuck.
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  Speaker 1: Now you know, a year older, a year more mature,
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  Speaker 1: more comfortable. You built the offense there as well. So
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  Speaker 1: the question is like, can you improve defensively in year
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  Speaker 1: two under Brandon Staley. So Chase Young did talk about
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  Speaker 1: his off season so far and how it's gone.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, man, just just just grind him, man. Knowing what
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  Speaker 2: we're putting together here in New Orleans. You know, we
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  Speaker 2: all can see what's going on. You know, Coach Kellen
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  Speaker 2: he's leading us, and honestly, man, we just grind him. Man.
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  Speaker 1: So when I look at New Orleans, which was ninth
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  Speaker 1: in the NFL last year in total defense, you obviously
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  Speaker 1: lose to Mario Davis, but you bring in Kate Nellis.
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  Speaker 1: You you went in free agency and a draft day
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  Speaker 1: trade to address your defensive line and edge rusher. Free
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  Speaker 1: agency with Kate Nellis at linebacker, hopefully you've improved your
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  Speaker 1: defense to where you can build year two in a
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  Speaker 1: Brandon Staley. And if you were ninth in the NFL
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  Speaker 1: in total defense last year, like sixteenth in scoring, how
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  Speaker 1: much better can you be?
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  Speaker 3: Like?
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  Speaker 1: Can twenty two and a half points per game drop
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  Speaker 1: to nineteen or twenty points per game? Like then all
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  Speaker 1: of a sudden and improved offense. Complimenting that defense against
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  Speaker 1: a weak schedule gives you confidence set maybe the Saints
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  Speaker 1: are going to go over their win total coming up
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  Speaker 1: in this year. And that's the other thing that Chase
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  Speaker 1: Young was asked about was the Saints offense and with
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  Speaker 1: the new pieces and Tyler Schuckey year old. Remember a
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  Speaker 1: year ago at this point it was like still a
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  Speaker 1: three man competition for the starting job. Like he know
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  Speaker 1: that was as if he's noticed the difference in the
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  Speaker 1: offense so far.
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  Speaker 2: I'm definitely excited, you know, shuck leading away young guy,
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  Speaker 2: Jordan Tyson. You know, we definitely we definitely brought in
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  Speaker 2: a lot of a lot of Q pieces that we needed, Travis,
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  Speaker 2: So as everybody on defense, we're all excited just to
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  Speaker 2: watch our offense go.
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  Speaker 3: You know, even in.
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  Speaker 2: Seven on seven, we can feel that it's it's more
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  Speaker 2: heat just going behind us and and things. Its balls
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  Speaker 2: going over my head and it's a lot more going on.
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  Speaker 2: So we're definitely just excited to see them guys rock.
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  Speaker 1: Jay Young hopefully a really strong season ahead of him
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  Speaker 1: for the New Orleans Saints. A long way to go
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  Speaker 1: still in this offseason. I would love to see him
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  Speaker 1: stay healthy this year. But you know a guy that
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  Speaker 1: had We talk all the time about Cam Jordan his
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  Speaker 1: ten and a half sacks, we might forget that Chase
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  Speaker 1: Hung last year had ten sacks and remember he missed
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  Speaker 1: five games. He missed the first five games of the season,
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  Speaker 1: had a double digit sacks season. So fit and eleven TFLs.
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  Speaker 1: So stay healthy, play seventeen games. How much can you
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  Speaker 1: build upon that this year? In year two under Brandon Stalers,
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  Speaker 1: a lot of reasons to be excited about the same team.
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  Speaker 3: I'm not sitting.
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  Speaker 1: Here telling you I think they're going to be a contender,
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  Speaker 1: because I don't. But I do think they're going to
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  Speaker 1: be a team that progresses from a year ago, improved
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  Speaker 1: its weaknesses, and are playing a bad schedule a week
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  Speaker 1: schedule that should net them more than the six wins
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  Speaker 1: they got a year ago. And who knows, maybe it
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  Speaker 1: pushes close enough. I mean, eight to nine won the
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  Speaker 1: division last year. Can you get to nine and eight?
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  Speaker 1: So maybe you're back in the playoffs for the first time
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  Speaker 1: since the COVID year