Latest / AFR Saints / Can Chase Young Repeat His Career Year? Saints' Pass Rush Faces New Challenge

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Can Chase Young Repeat His Career Year? Saints' Pass Rush Faces New Challenge · AFR Saints

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  Speaker 1: dot org. Golf dot brek dot org. I enjoy taking
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  Speaker 1: a peek at Pro Football Focus grades and numbers. I
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  Speaker 1: say it all the time for the benefit of those
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  Speaker 1: who've never heard me talk about it before Pro Football Focus,
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  Speaker 1: I always say it's a metric. It's not the metric.
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  Speaker 1: It's just something to consider as we make our way
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  Speaker 1: through evaluating teams and processes at all. And Pro Football
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  Speaker 1: Focus has been going through their ranking series, and again,
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  Speaker 1: you know how I feel. I don't care about I
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  Speaker 1: don't care about rankings and lists and all that sort
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  Speaker 1: of stuff. Pro Football Focus is different because this isn't
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  Speaker 1: necessarily just a subjective opinion. They are using their raids,
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  Speaker 1: like their Pro Football Focus grades assigned to these players
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  Speaker 1: to tell you here were the top players at their
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  Speaker 1: position a year ago heading into this season, and they
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  Speaker 1: looked at the edge rushers and no surprise, Miles Garrett
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  Speaker 1: number one. He's the best defensive player, maybe the best
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  Speaker 1: player in the NFL. Will and Anderson is two, MICHAEH.
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  Speaker 1: Parsons is three, Aiden Hutchinson's four. Interesting that two of
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  Speaker 1: the guys in that list are coming off really have
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  Speaker 1: had really serious injuries recently. Josh Hinz Allen, Nick Bosa,
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  Speaker 1: Max Crosby, Daniel Hunter eight, TJ Watt nine, Trey Hendrickson
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  Speaker 1: New beginnings in Baltimore at ten. Jared Verish, of course,
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  Speaker 1: just got shipped from the Rams to Cleveland in the
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  Speaker 1: trade with Miles Garrett. Greg Russo at twelve. Alex high Smith,
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  Speaker 1: I'm going through this thinking, all right, like, is Chayseng
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  Speaker 1: gonna pop on here? Former number two overall picks at
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  Speaker 1: a really good start to his time in New Orleans,
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  Speaker 1: Nick Benito, Latsu lat Too, Abdul Carter sixteen, Nick Herbig seventeen,
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  Speaker 1: Khalil Mack, Jonathan Grenard, Brian Burns, DeMarcus Lawrence. I'm going,
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  Speaker 1: like you get to this point, I'm going am I
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  Speaker 1: missing it? On? Chase Young, Andrew Van Ginkle, Byron Young
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  Speaker 1: Boy MAFE and then twenty fifth is where they have
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  Speaker 1: Chase Young and they knowe. While he hasn't quite lived
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  Speaker 1: up to the building of being the second overall selection
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  Speaker 1: in the twenty twenty NFL draft, Young has been a
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  Speaker 1: good player in the NFL. Six seasons into his career,
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  Speaker 1: he's produced just one year with a PFF grade below
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  Speaker 1: seventy four. He's coming off a twenty twenty five season
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  Speaker 1: that saw him set a career high with an eighty
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  Speaker 1: six point three PFF pass rush grade. That's the part
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  Speaker 1: that I look at and go, Okay, maybe it's not
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  Speaker 1: necessarily just how you are how you play overall. It's
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  Speaker 1: how you fit in the offense or excuse me, in
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  Speaker 1: your specific defense. And the thing that sometimes I keep
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  Speaker 1: having to remind myself because the Saints of a team
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  Speaker 1: that was six and eleven a year ago. They were
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  Speaker 1: objectively not a good football team, but there were things
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  Speaker 1: in that seat in that were good. We've talked plenty
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  Speaker 1: about Tyler Shuck going five and four in the nine
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  Speaker 1: games that he started, but the New Orleans Saints were
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  Speaker 1: a top ten defense a year ago, and I can't
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  Speaker 1: help but and I understand context matters, and late in
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  Speaker 1: the season they were playing bad teams, and so part
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  Speaker 1: of that factors into it. When they played Seattle and
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  Speaker 1: Buffalo and the Rams, they got the doors blown off,
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  Speaker 1: and I get it. So I know they're not an
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  Speaker 1: elite team because I look at the elite teams they
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  Speaker 1: don't match up. But I also look at like the
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  Speaker 1: Saints New Orleans was eighth in the NFL and sacks
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  Speaker 1: a year ago, You're eighth in the NFL. Part of
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  Speaker 1: that was a huge resurgence from Cam Jordan. But that
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  Speaker 1: sort of speaks to the point I'm making. Cam Jordan
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  Speaker 1: isn't a guy that plays ninety eight percent of the
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  Speaker 1: defensive snaps anymore. He plays forty five to fifty percent
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  Speaker 1: of the defensive snaps, and in so doing has become
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  Speaker 1: a pass or a specialist ed rusher and gave you
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  Speaker 1: a really productive season a year ago. I look at
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  Speaker 1: Chase Young, who, as PFF noted, you look at his career,
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  Speaker 1: the lowest grade he's ever had was the twenty twenty
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  Speaker 1: three season. That was the year he got traded when
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  Speaker 1: Washington traded him to San Francisco, and he had a
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  Speaker 1: grade of seventy four point seven that year, and then
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  Speaker 1: I look at last year or two years ago, twenty
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  Speaker 1: twenty four. Now forgive me, that was his lowest grade overall.
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  Speaker 1: For me, his lowest grade overall was his first year
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  Speaker 1: in New Orleans at sixty six point eight. But you
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  Speaker 1: look at what he did last season playing, you know,
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  Speaker 1: when he missed the first six games with injury, and
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  Speaker 1: then he pops up and ends up last year in
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  Speaker 1: New Orleans with an overall grade of seventy eight. The
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  Speaker 1: only grade in his career it was better was his
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  Speaker 1: rookie year, which was the COVID year, when he graded
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  Speaker 1: out overall as an eighty seven point one. The seventy
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  Speaker 1: eight matched his twenty twenty two season in Washington, where
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  Speaker 1: he played just one hundred and fourteen snaps. It's when
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  Speaker 1: he got injured. So I just keep looking at it
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  Speaker 1: and I go man a dozen sacks a year ago,
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  Speaker 1: thirty five quarterback Hurries. He was an elite edge rusher,
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  Speaker 1: which helped the Saints be eighth in the NFL in sacks.
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  Speaker 1: He was complimented by Cameron Jordan. And you've still got
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  Speaker 1: Carl Granderson hanging around, and I think some of the
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  Speaker 1: young edge rushers that they're brought in as well. And
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  Speaker 1: I really like the way they've built this defense with
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  Speaker 1: some high ceiling guys that didn't cost a ton like
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  Speaker 1: Jay Hung is a great example of it. I like,
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  Speaker 1: as we've talked about Jonas Sanker, who is a guy
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  Speaker 1: clearly they've hit on in the draft out of Virginia
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  Speaker 1: who was both a free safety for you in a
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  Speaker 1: box safety a year ago. It's going to play that
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  Speaker 1: star position. They feel like he's locked into that spot,
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  Speaker 1: you know. And Kellen Moore met with reporters during one
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  Speaker 1: of the OTAs in June and talked about like a
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  Speaker 1: difference that he's noted and noticed in Chase Young this year.
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  Speaker 2: And I think when you have a successful season and
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  Speaker 2: you kind of are building, confidence comes from that. And
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  Speaker 2: I think you can sense that from Chase. And I
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  Speaker 2: think also when Cam wasn't around, there's an expectation of
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  Speaker 2: you know, there's a leadership void there, and you know,
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  Speaker 2: for Chase, for Grando, for Chris Rump, you know, these
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  Speaker 2: guys who've kind of been here to help lead that group,
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  Speaker 2: I think is an important part.
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  Speaker 1: You know, he played in fifteen games as a rookie,
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  Speaker 1: just nine games in his second year, played just three
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  Speaker 1: games in twenty twenty two, and then split the twenty
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  Speaker 1: three season seven games with Washington nine with San Francisco,
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  Speaker 1: so he played sixteen games. And then his first year
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  Speaker 1: in New Orleans played every game so he stayed healthy.
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  Speaker 1: And then last year we know he missed the front
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  Speaker 1: of the season, but then after that when he returned
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  Speaker 1: he played. He played all twelve games after after missing
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  Speaker 1: the first five. So I look at Chase Young as
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  Speaker 1: a guy who the injury label that he was tagged
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  Speaker 1: with early in his career. He's sort of beaten that
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  Speaker 1: at this point and has turned into a really outstanding
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  Speaker 1: productive player who's still only twenty seven years old and
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  Speaker 1: had a career year last year with his ten sacks
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  Speaker 1: and might be able to build on it in another
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  Speaker 1: year in this offense as they've continued to supplement fortify
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  Speaker 1: the defense around him. So I am really excited for
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  Speaker 1: Chase Young. I know that the PFF numbers have him
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  Speaker 1: as the twenty fifth best edge rusher in the NFL.
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  Speaker 1: I'm not so sure there's twenty five dudes in the
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  Speaker 1: NFL I'm taking over Chase Young at this point, they'll
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  Speaker 1: have a great opportunity to prove it in Brandon Saley's defense.
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  Speaker 1: In year two, in brand Saley's defense,