Saints counting on veteran defense to stay healthy and productive in 2023

Greg Auman

NFC South Reporter

Depending on your perspective, the Saints will have one of the most experienced defenses in the NFL in 2023, or just one of the oldest. Is this a veteran unit, or an aging one?

As the quarterbacks they’ll face in the NFC South get decidedly younger, the Saints will continue to rely on more 30-something defensive players than any other team in the NFL. That group carries proven leadership, even as it battles against an inevitable decline.

Led by pass-rusher Cameron Jordan and linebacker Demario Davis, New Orleans had five defensive players 30 or older starting at least 10 games last season, matching the most in the league. Four of those five players are back this fall: Jordan turned 34 last week, Davis turns 35 in January and defensive backs Tyrann Mathieu and Bradley Roby return as well.

“My love for this city and this team is as high as it’s ever been,” said Davis, entering his sixth year in New Orleans after playing for the Jets and Browns in his first six NFL seasons. “You think you know what it means to play in New Orleans and to be a part of this culture, and to be a part of Who Dat Nation. But the longer you’re here, the more it becomes ingrained in you. It’s like a good gumbo. The seasoning just sits in there.”

The other 2022 team with five 30-plus defensive starters, the Vikings, had a different offseason approach, allowing linebacker Eric Kendricks to sign with the Chargers, pass-rusher Za’Darius Smith with the Browns and defensive back Patrick Peterson with the Steelers. New Orleans’ only veteran loss was defensive tackle David Onyemata, who signed with the Falcons, and his initial replacement could be newcomer Nathan Shepherd, just months younger at 29.

These Saints have defied their age for a while, and they’re not at the limits of their positions yet — five players older than Jordan had more than his 8.5 sacks last year. Davis has had at least 100 tackles in six straight seasons, but he’s also been the oldest player to hit that milestone in each of the past two years. Mathieu, 31, has had at least three interceptions four years in a row, after doing so just once in his first six NFL seasons.

Like the rest of the NFC South, a veteran Saints defense will also get to face a ton of young quarterbacks. In the first eight weeks alone, they’ll likely face the three QBs taken in the top four picks in April, all on the road — at Carolina and Bryce Young in Week 2, at Houston and C.J. Stroud in Week 6 and at Indianapolis and Anthony Richardson in Week 8, plus a Week 3 game at Green Bay vs. Jordan Love, who has one career start.

Keeping a core of experienced defensive players together isn’t completely a choice for the Saints, as they’ve restructured contracts over and over to help stay under the salary cap. When Jordan’s current contract expires after this season, he’ll have $23 million in “dead money” counting against future salary caps as a result of using void years for cap help. Davis, Mathieu and Roby account for another $18 million in dead cap when their deals are up, making it difficult for the team to move on if it wanted to.

Those same cap constraints kept the Saints from keeping younger defensive standouts from leaving this spring: Pass-rusher Marcus Davenport, 26, signed with the Vikings; linebacker Kaden Elliss, 27, went to the Falcons and defensive tackle Shy Tuttle, 27, signed with the Panthers. New Orleans still has young talent, like rookies Bryan Bresee and Isaiah Foskey on the defensive front, and young corners Alontae Taylor and Paulson Adebo, who will compete for the spot opposite Marshon Lattimore.

And obviously the Saints’ success and failure doesn’t hinge solely on the defense. New Orleans held its final eight opponents all to 20 points or fewer to close out last season, but that didn’t always translate to victory. Three times in that span, the Saints gave up 17 points or fewer and still lost — that hadn’t happened to New Orleans once in nearly four years.

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Perhaps the arrival of quarterback Derek Carr and the addition of running back Jamaal Williams will lead to a more productive offense, requiring less defense to secure wins. One area where the Saints will need to improve is takeaways as they had only 14 in all of last season, one off the league low, and that contributed to New Orleans having the second-worst turnover margin in the NFL. That will be stressed more and more by new defensive coordinator Joe Woods, whose Browns defense had at least 19 takeaways in each of the past three seasons.

“It’s all about the ball,” Woods said last month in a podcast interview on the Saints’ team site. “It’s something you have to practice, you have to talk about, you have to show examples. You have to be able to attack the ball. It has to become second nature to you.”

With an older defense, staying healthy is all the more crucial to the overall success, and that has been a strength of the Saints’ most experienced players. Jordan has missed two games total in his 12-year career, and Davis has missed one in his 11 years in the NFL. Keep that up, and these players will have a chance to get New Orleans back in the playoffs after two years of missing the cut, and that experience could be even more of an advantage in the postseason.

Greg Auman is FOX Sports’ NFC South reporter, covering the Buccaneers, Falcons, Panthers and Saints. He is in his 10th season covering the Bucs and the NFL full-time, having spent time at the Tampa Bay Times and The Athletic. You can follow him on Twitter at @gregauman.

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