DOMINATING: New Orleans Saints’ Defense Delivers ELITE Performance Behind Demario Davis, D-Line
Along with the stellar performance by rookie quarterback Tyler Shuck, it was the New Orleans Saints defense that dominated the Carolina Panthers. We got all that and a little bit of land for you on today’s episode of Locked on Saints. You are Locked on Saints, your daily New Orleans Saints podcast, part of the Locked On podcast network. Your team every day. What is good Huda nation and Huda family? I am your host, your friend Ross Jackson, New Orleans native, your New Orleans Saints expert and credentialed member of the media covering those New Orleans Saints as the Saints beat writer over at louisianaapasports.net. Now, on today’s episode of Locked on Saints, Kellen Moore said he wants to use the by-week to self scout. We’ll break down what that means and how he has done that to great success in the past. We’ll take a look as well at the unsung heroes of the New Orleans Saints win in Carolina, including a couple of stellar special teams performances, and we’ll kick everything off with a fantastic performance by the New Orleans Saints defense, which dominated the Carolina Panthers, led by, of course, Deario Davis and Alante Taylor. We’re going to break all that down and more for you on today’s episode of Locked On Saints. We appreciate you very much whether it’s your first time or your next time being here with us this time making us your first listen and being an everydayer here on the show which is a proud part of Locked on Podcast Network your team every day and thank you for making the Locked on Podcast Network the number one sports podcast network. We appreciate all of your support and for helping us get to this uh incredible place. We appreciate you very much. And of course today’s episode brought to you by our friends over at FanDuel. Right now, new customers can get $300 in bonus bets by winning your first $5 bet. Head over to FanDuel.com to get started with the official sports betting partner of the NBA. The New Orleans Saints defense was absolutely dominant going up against the Carolina Panthers. And while we spent a lot of time out of the coming out of the game talking about rookie quarterback Tyler Shaw and completely understandably so, I wanted to give the flowers to the New Orleans defense that are absolutely deserved. Uh, the Saints held the Carolina Panthers to under four yards per play. Yeah, you heard that. Four offensive yards per play. They were unheld them under that. They held the Carolina Panthers run game, which was its bread and butter, led by breakout player of the year candidate right now in terms of breakout players. Rico D, who’s on a one-year deal with the Carolina Panthers after his time with the Dallas Cowboys, held the Carolina Panthers running game as a whole to 3.2 yards per carry. one of the best performances by the defense and there were a lot of players that contributed to that and as we highlighted in our postgame show, Demario Davis and Alante Taylor were among the top. But even beyond them, guys like Cam Jordan going in there getting a sack and performing in the run game. Same thing for Nathan Shepard. Same thing for Chase Young. Didn’t get a sack, but got some pressure in this game. Has continued to be disruptive on the defensive line. has been every bit of what the New Orleans Saints wanted with giving him that new three-year deal going into this season and finally being able to get him out on the field. He’s been a bit of a differencemaker for them over on the defensive side. But Pete Wernern also had a fantastic game. It just felt like the Saints had a perfect game plan for what it was that the Carolina Panthers wanted to get done. And there’s no mystery as to why Brandon Staley and his defensive scheme has this sort of adaptive nature to it that adjusts to what it is that opposing offenses are trying to do. And so it really comes down to playing by your rules. That way you’re adjusting as the offense is throwing new things at you. You watch the coverage constantly when it comes to this sort of zone match uh scheme that you have. That’s kind of like the family of scheme that Brian Brandon Sy is from from his VFangio days and all that to where you have you know different coverage players that are operating under different rules. If this player in this position one two or three at wide receiver runs an outbreaking route I do this when I do that this player does this. There’s a lot of shift and replace that goes on in the secondary. They communicated very very well throughout this game so that when they could force the run game away from the Carolina Panthers, they were able to then execute on the back end and take away some of the potential passing concepts for some talented young wide receivers like Xavier Legette as well as Jaylen Koker. And then of course, even though he was dealing with that hamstring injury, Tedoa McMillan, and we saw the Carolina Panthers wheel out a lot of those three tight end sets as well, that gave the Saints some trouble last week in Los Angeles. You saw them be able to adjust to that very well. Good coverage on guys like, you know, Tavon Sanders and other tight ends that were out there on the field for the Carolina Panthers. So, great stuff over on the defensive side for New Orleans in terms of their adjustments and being able to take things away. They were able to stand up to the run game well by winning at the line of scrimmage. Two simple rules, winning at the line of scrimmage and understanding the play flow. This was a great film study game where you could see tape be a factor for the New Orleans Saints defense. You watch Demario Davis all throughout consistently diagnosing what it was that the Carolina Panthers were trying to do in their run game by reading the play flow, i.e. where the offensive line is going off for the snap and being able to fill in, understand where, hey, when they do this out of this alignment or this formation, they like the gap to be here. So then he’s shooting that gap and beating the running back there. We saw Pete Warner do that quite a bit as well. We saw good stuff from Alante Taylor in that phase of the game, too. And so just a good understanding of what it was that Carolina likes to do, where they want to deploy their run game, and how to beat them to the punch. I think the Saints defense did a really good job with all that. Now, how do you get better from here? And I think the biggest thing that will help the Saints get even better from here is first of all maintaining that run stopping ability, but then generating a little more pressure when it comes to putting pressure on the quarterback as well. I thought that the Saints did a good job in terms of generating pressure and getting after um uh Bryce Young all throughout this game. Bryce Young never really felt comfortable, never really felt settled in, but we still look at the Saints as one of the bottom teams in the league when it comes to generating pressure on a percentage basis. And so finding ways to become a little bit more consistent in pressure generation, I think takes this team uh to a whole new place. Now, the Saints have improved big time. Remember, they were 31st in the NFL. They’re now 27th in the NFL. I know being 27th in the NFL is never any team’s end goal, but that is a heck of a lot of improvement since getting Chase Young back. They were one of the worst teams in the league at like 22.2 22.8% quarterback pressure percentage. Right now, they’ve moved up to 30.9%. So, good things coming from that pressure generation so far and they’re headed in the right direction. just would like to see that train pick up a little bit more steam so that this Saints defense can keep improving, keep getting more comfortable. If the pass rush is there, it helps the coverage. if the if they’re taking away the run game and then you’re forcing them to throw the football, especially if you’re also boosting on the offensive side your ability to score points, which Tyler Shuck has shown at least a little bit of momentum towards to to be fair and say, uh, then I think that there are some good things that can be there for the Saints defense as they continue to get maybe the pass rush a little bit better and a little bit more productive. I love the idea of also discussing how you improve this defense going into next year as well as we start to take a look and watch the the end of the season creep closer and closer and closer in a really unfortunate way as things are just starting to get exciting for New Orleans. Um, but adding pieces like Arll Reese or Caleb DS out of Iowa State, the linebacker in safety, both very disruptive and can do a lot of different things. being able to add a potential pass rusher like an RMason Thomas in the second round or you start off with that in the first round with a Ruben Bane Jr. out of Miami. Lots of good ways for the Saints to build up and continue to invest in Brandon Staley’s defense as the scheme begins to take hold and shows some promise on the field. So, excellent stuff from the New Orleans defense which absolutely dominated Bryce Young and that Carolina Panthers offense. Up next, I want to take a look at some of the unsung heroes that contributed to this win, not just on defense, but we will start there, including some big bodies in the middle that made things very, very challenging for Carolina’s run game. Let’s get to that next as we continue on with today’s episode of Lockdown Saints, part of Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. Today’s episode of Locked On Saints is brought to you by our friends over at Ripling. If you’re a business owner, you know the truth, right? SAS was promised to you to be something to make your work easier. But now the average company is buried under hundreds of apps that don’t communicate with one another and have slowed down the work of your teams. That’s not SAS. That’s sad. That’s software as a disservice. That’s why you need Rippling. Rippling is a unified platform for global HR, payroll, IT, and finance all in one place, helping you get the expedited nature that you need from the software that you’re using, replacing that mess of disconnected tools with one system that’s designed to give leaders clarity, speed, and control, as well as of course that efficiency. And it’s super easy to use as well. And right now you can get 6 months free when you go to rippling.com/lockedonfl. That’s ripp png.com/lockedonfl. That’s rippling.com/locked NFL for 6 months free. Terms and conditions apply. Today’s episode also brought to you by our friends over at FanDuel. The NBA is back and there’s no better place to get in on all of the action than with FanDuel, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. And it doesn’t even matter if you miss the beginning of a game or you decide in the middle of a game that you want to ride the hot hand and pick up on a big streak. Well, you can find all of that in FanDuel’s live betting, which is some of my favorite stuff that they have over on the website and app. It allows you to bet on everything from who scores the next points to fourth quarter comebacks and more. You can even put different live bets together for a live bet, same game parlay with a chance at an even bigger payout. It keeps every game exciting, especially when it’s your favorite team that’s making a late push. I’m starting to take some of the overs on Derek Queen. And that’s worked out really well for me and watching the Pelicans play. And right now, FanDuel gives new customers $300 in bonus bets when your first $5 bet wins. So head over to fanduel.com to sign up and play your game with FanDuel today, the official sports betting partner of the NBA. All right, family. The New Orleans Saints, it wasn’t just the big names out there that ended up making a big difference for this team up against the Carolina Panthers. There were some unsung heroes on the field as well. And speaking of unsung heroes, thank you again for making the Lockdown Podcast Network the number one sports podcast network. That is a huge achievement for us and it couldn’t have happened without you. And this New Orleans victory couldn’t have happened without some players that we don’t often talk about on this show. So, I thought it’d be fun to kind of go into my list of unsung heroes for this matchup. And number one on the list, funny enough, a guy that I don’t think that we’ve talked about since the beginning of the season, but when the Saints signed him, it was like an immediate assumption he was going to make the active roster, even though he was what we would call like a late free agency or a lower level signing in terms of like finances and things like that. But how about defensive tackle Jonathan Bullard? Jonathan Buller didn’t play a ton of snaps on Sunday, but he made his presence felt when he was on the field. He was somebody that ended up making several big stops for the Saints uh when it came to defending Rico and that run game. And he was somebody that constantly popped up for me all throughout the game despite the fact that he played only 14 snaps on the day. Now, 10 of those snaps came on run defense and he was credited credited credited credited. Yeah, credited. That’s right. Creded uh with only one defensive stop, but it felt like he was in on so much. And when you watch the tape, the reason why is because this dude just does not get moved off the line of scrimmage. We talked about how the Saints help themselves a lot by just not being moved off the line of scrimmage. That’s reflected in the deeper analytics as well. You know, some of the ones that we really like here, yards before contact in particular, yards after contact, really good stats about how a run game is being created or how a run game is being stopped. And the Saints were one of the best teams in the league going up against one of the best rushing offenses in the NFL in this game, especially over the course of the past five or six games or so in stopping the run or or not allowing running backs to gain yards before contact. The Saints allowed only 0.35 yards before contact. That was second best in the NFL at the time that I’m recording this with Monday Night Football still pending. And the only team that was better than that was the Buffalo Bills who made most of their contact behind the line of scrimmage minus.21. So outside of that crazy stat, the Saints were one of the best run defenses in the NFL in terms of winning at the line of scrimmage. And when you can win in the trenches, you can win football games. And that’s exactly what the New Orleans Saints did. Yards after contact, 2.83, 28-3, anybody? Uh 2.83 yards after contact allowed. That was 11th in the NFL. Uh by the way, the Buffalo Bills, who had the best yards before contact, had one of the worst yards after contact uh games at 6.39 yards after contact. So uh not tackling was a big issue. Worst in the league when it came to yards after contact in week 10, you might ask. Well, that would be the Atlanta Falcons. six and a half yards allowed after contact. Those guys cannot tackle. And so you’re hoping that that will still be an issue for Atlanta after the Saints by week as they host the Atlanta Falcons for week 12. So Jonathan Bulard gets a big shout out. I’ll stay in the trenches real quick and name one other guy, Brian Brezie. Brian Brezie has been so much fun to watch this season because he’s impacting the game in more ways than being a pass rusher. Now, he led the team last year with seven and a half sacks. He’s not there in terms of this season when it comes to that in particular, but he is still having an impact on the season so far for New Orleans. This is a guy that has made a lot of plays in the back field or made a lot of plays at the line of scrimmage. He was the guy that ended up kind of wrangling um uh Rico like by the neck and dragging him down with one arm. He was just he has just been somebody so far this year that has made a lot of those big-time plays in the run game. And that was a part of his game that was really criticized coming into the NFL. He’s got one and a half sacks on the season, but he has performed so well as a run defender. The Saints are very, very pleased with what they’ve seen from him. Um Brandon Staley, defensive coordinator, wax philosophic about him at the podium on Thursday before the game as well. So, all signs pointing to really good development by Brian Brezie. He was one of the lowest graded pro football focus grades, but I tend to take that with a grain of salt because it seems that it’s there’s always defensive tackles that have good performances that are at the bottom of PFF grades. I just don’t think they’ve ever really figured out how to adequately grade those players. Offensive line and defensive line are not really their strength when it comes to overall grading. But the raw numbers peel out in favor of Brian Brezie and his performance and his most importantly his development so far this season. So really really good stuff that we’ve seen so far uh from Brian Brazie. Another guy that I want to highlight over on the offensive side of the football um is a lesser name but a name that we’ve all been waiting to see more from and that was Devon Vele. I I know Devon Bailey had one catch for 15 yards in this game, but if you watch the screen uh to Alvin Chimera that goes for 26 yards. You watch some of the breakaway run plays that the Saints ended up having throughout this game and even some of the pass protection stuff or protection downfield after a receiver has already caught the ball. Devon Vele is getting his hands dirty every chance he gets blocking downfield. He was 25 yards downfield blocking for Alvin Chimera on the screen for instance on the screen pass, excuse me, for instance. And so it’s things like that that really set him apart from some of these other wide outs to where he can be on the field, but even if he’s not targeted, he’s got the capabilities and the physicality and the talent and the size to go out there and still be an impact player for the team in other ways. You’re not going to get that from some of the smaller and more slender wide receivers around the league, but you can get that from your 6’5, 210 plus pound wide receiver. And so it was good to see him downfield getting that done for sure. Another guy that was rated very low or graded very low by Pro Football Focus in this one, but that I thought had some really good moments was Dylan Raidens. Dylan Raidens stepped into back into the starting lineup. He has now started four games for the Saints. three of those games as a team they have rushed over a hundred yards. He helps them a lot when it comes to their run game. His ability to get to the second level, his ability to be a to pull and be a lead blocker, his ability in the screen game, right? Not 25 yards downfield, but a few yards downfield. He was one of the lead blockers for Alvin Chimera on that screen before he cut back inside and then went up behind Caesar Ruiz and then ended up following up behind Devon Vele. He was a big key for this game as well because he was one of three offensive linemen that were backups starting in this game that did a good enough job keeping Tyler Shuck at least alive and uh you know still under pressure, right? I mean, he still had to move around and navigate the pocket and everything like that, but kept pockets clean enough at least for him to be able to do that. So, those are some of my unsung heroes. Isaiah Stalberg deserves to be on the list as well. Um, uh, uh, Kool-Aid, I’m sorry, uh, Kool-Aid’s not an unsung hero, but, uh, Yonas Sanker deserves to be on the list as well. Pete Wernern is another guy that deserves to be on that list. And so there’s a lot of these players that I think Foster Marorrow. So, like this was really the most complete game we’ve seen by New Orleans in some time. I think even more complete than the five takeaway game up against the new uh, New York Giants. And so seeing if the Saints can carry this momentum forward through the bye-week is going to be the most important thing. But in order for them to do that, it’s going to be some of these lesser talked about players, quote unquote, that need to keep their performances consistent because that keeps that floor really high for where New Orleans can go for the rest of the season, which doesn’t have to be a playoff team, but just showing promise like we talked about in yesterday’s episode, which makes sure you know we’re here 5 days a week and then some. Make sure you come through for all of our episodes here. All right, coming up next, the New Orleans Saints are going to use the by-week as an opportunity for scouting. And the last time that Kell Moore got a chance to do that, he turned a 2 and2 Philadelphia Eagles team into a Super Bowl contender and eventually champion. That won’t happen for New Orleans. But how he uses this week off is going to be really important. We got that coming up for you next as we continue on with today’s episode of Lockdown Saints, part of Lockdown Podcast Network, your team every day. I’m Cody Ror from Lockdown Broncos and this episode is brought to you by Pelaton. Pelaton is shaping the future of fitness with the brand new Pelaton crossraining tread plus powered by Pelaton IQ. This is Pelaton’s most advanced equipment yet, giving you realtime guidance and endless ways to move. Whether you’re running, lifting, or you’re crossraining with your favorite instructors like Alex Tusant. It’s training reimagined to make your workout more personal. Pelaton is built for breakthroughs with features that help you plan, stay motivated, and hit peak performance. You can let yourself run, lift, flex, and go while Pelaton handles all the rest. Plus, Pelaton IQ provides real time strength coaching, tracking your progress and suggesting weights that challenge you so you can get stronger. Plus, the new movement tracking camera. It counts your reps and corrects your form in real time, making sure every rep is safer and smarter. So, let yourself run, lift, flex, push, and go. Explore the new Pelaton cross trainining tread plus at onepelon.com. Let’s get it. Had a nation. The last time that Kell Moore was given a by-week to do some self scouting, it went really, really well. And while we can’t expect the same results this year for the New Orleans Saints as what the Saints as what the Philadelphia Eagles got with Kell Moore and his self scouting over on the offensive side of the football. Um, there are still some things here that the Saints could potentially come out of this bye-week on the other side of the season looking like a much more prepared, much better football team. And that’s certainly what we’d like to see from Kell Moore and the New Orleans Saints at this point moving forward throughout the year. I mentioned in yesterday’s episode that a big part of the last seven years or seven years, last seven games, it might feel like seven years, but last seven games of the Saints season is all about watching the building blocks, right? young players Tyler Shuck, Kelvin Banks Jr. who was awesome against Carolina. Uh seeing more Danny Stzman, Quincy Riley, Yonas Sanker. This 2025 draft class has actually produced some pretty good building blocks for this New Orleans Saints team. Devin Neil, right, who really started to look like he was coming into his own last week up against Carolina. And so, but the other big building block for New Orleans is Kell Moore. Like, Kell Moore is going to be given patience throughout this rebuild. And I think that’s the right move. doesn’t mean that we can’t say, “Hey, this is something that should be improved. This is a critique. This is a critique.” And all those other things. That’s part of the job, right? We’re looking at things that the Saints could be looking to do better. We’re asking questions about that, and then we’re seeing if they’re implementing those things. And a lot of the stuff that Kellen Horus talked about over the course of the season, we really finally saw implemented in this game up against the Carolina Panthers. Now, red zone offense still a major concern. what this team turns into beyond the 40 yard line of the opposing team is still very baffling and very confusing. And there’s still some game management things that Kell Moore has just got to get accustomed to at some point here throughout his his tenure. But those are things that I’ll be very curious to see what kinds of adjustments are maybe made going into or coming out of the bye-week. We spoke to him on Monday via Zoom and we asked him like, “How do you treat the bye-week? What do you do?” And he mentioned self scouting right off the bat being a thing that he gets done. Now, when we talk about self scouting, we’re talking about something different than how we usually talk about scouting. How we usually talk about scouting, we’re talking about, you know, area scouts going and watching college prospects or getting a look at other players around the league and potentially looking at players to invest in and things like that. That’s not really what we’re talking about here. What we’re really talking about when from a self scouting standpoint is what have the New Orleans Saints as a coaching staff, as a scheme, and as a system been doing and how do you what needs to be changed and how do you change or adjust moving forward throughout the rest of the season. So, those are things we’re going to be looking at. I’ll give you an example at the beginning of last year through the first four games for the Philadelphia Eagles and this is the this is where an early buy is helpful for a football team. So the first four games they finished two and two and a lot of what they were trying to do was run the offense through the air attack. You have AJ Brown, you have Dallas GDart, you have Devonte uh uh Smith, you have Jaylen Herz, and they were trying to do a lot of this stuff through the air. And then finally at the bye-week after players and everybody’s kind of talked about it, Kell Moore came in and said, “You know what? Let’s build the offensive attack through the ground game and Squan as well as the ground game and Jaylen Herz.” and then they turned into a Super Bowl contender and then eventually became a Super Bowl team. Now, we’re not talking about the New Orleans Saints in the back half of the season turning into a playoff contender or a Super Bowl contender or even winning a Super Bowl. That’s okay. That’s not the expectation. Where we’re looking at for the Saints is, can you show promise? That’s it. Very simple, very easy. Can you give the fans hope, right? Can you show them that the vision is coming together? I think if you get to the end of your first year as a new regime as a whole, this isn’t just a head coach comment, but new regime as a whole, new direction, everything like that, and the vision isn’t clear, then you’re probably starting all over again the second year. And then you have to hope that that ends up working by the end of the second year because there’s no guarantee that you get the third year. And so for Kell Moore and this New Orleans Saints coaching staff, roster, team, however scheme, schematic, philos, you know, looking at their philosophy, looking at their system, whatever it might be, finding a way to show promise and let everybody see the vision coming together at the end of the season, that to me is going to be very important. So finding out like, okay, do the Saints get better in red zone after the by-week because they’ve changed their approach there and had the moment to stop and evaluate and make adjustments because of the what the by-week presents them or do they still struggle there? Are the Saints better when they get into opposing territory, that area of the field that has killed them here throughout the season? Are they better? Do they remain better on third down? right? They showed a really good step forward on Sunday against Carolina on third down. And so, can they be better moving forward? Like, is that something that’s consistent? And beyond that, do all the success from week 10, can you extend that to week 12, 13 through 18? And so, all of those question marks are going to be the ones that are going to be worth watching as the team returns at home up against Atlanta looking to knock off the Atlanta Falcons uh on two Sundays from now. And so self- scouting is a really really good thing and it’s tough to do it when you have the game plan and get started. But when you have the week off, real opportunity here for Kell Moore and the New Orleans Saints coaching staff to take a good hard look at themselves, a good hard look at their offense, defense, and special teams and make the adjustments necessary to bring some promise throughout the rest of this season. All right, time for a little bit of LANAP for you. Something I’m going to start doing at the end of just about every episode. I did two three round mock drafts and I just want to know which one you like better. This is going to give me a pretty good early indication of the kinds of players that people are interested in uh and want to hear more about. This is also going to give us a little bit of an opportunity to explore different scenarios within within the draft, which I think is the smartest way to approach the draft. Not just one player at a time, but this player and this player or this player and this player, what a first and second round pick, first, second, and third round pick can look like. So, I did two three round mock drafts for you. And I want to know your thoughts in the first round at pick number two overall. Now, for these, I went with the idea that rolling forward with Tyler Shuck in 2026 is the option, right? So, that’s the that’s this the hypothetical that we played with. We’ll play with a bunch of different things over the course of the next few weeks, but for right now, that’s what I’m operating with. And so, with one draft, I went with Ohio State linebacker Arll Reese. I’m just telling you right now, get ready to hear his name a lot. He’s probably the best player in this draft. He can cover. He can pass rush. He can run stop. He can uh drop into uh different zones. He can play man. Like there’s so much that this guy can do and is probably the best player in this draft. And if you’re picking number two overall and don’t need a quarterback, that is the player that you should go out and get. And so Arvel Ree to the New Orleans Saints at number two is where I went there. Assuming that if the Tennessee Titans are holding on to their number overall selection like they are right now that they might trade out so that somebody can go up and get that first overall selection to grab the quarterback that they want, allowing the Saints to pick of the litter at number two if they were to stay there. At round two, pick 34. I went back to the offensive line. Don’t be mad at me, but the Saints do need some help at guard one side or the other. So, I went with offensive lineman out of Penn State, Ola Vega Yon, who is a dog. Like an absolute beast in the middle of the offense, very physical player, big body, uh tops out over 300, is a guy that ends up helping you out big time on the interior, whether immediately or down the road, depending on if Dylan Raidens returns. If not, then maybe that’s a thing or maybe the Saints look to uh be ready for life after Caesar Ruiz. This is a player that could absolutely get you there. and in round three pick 66 in this hypothetical scenario in terms of where this thing sit right now. I wanted to get a pass catcher, but there’s not a wide receiver that I really like after the second round, at least right now, right? I haven’t scouted that far ahead, but right now not a guy that really stood out to me, but Baylor tight end Michael Triggs absolutely did. Uh the this the 6’4 240lb tight end is an absolute athlete and pass catcher and is super fun to watch on Sunday on Saturdays. if you haven’t gotten a chance to catch them out, definitely worth your time. All right, next mock draft that I did. Round two, sorry, round one, pick two overall. Probably too early for this, but I did it anyway just the sake of the conversation. Safety Caleb DS, another one of the better players in this year’s draft. I didn’t go with Ruben Bane cuz it felt chalk, so I left that out of the scenario cuz I’m trying to get your opinions here, right? I want to know how you feel about not just the best players, but all of the different possibilities here. So I went safety Caleb down who could be a little bit of the Derwin James for Brandon Sely in his defense. Um then you have wide receiver Elijah Serat out of Indiana who I went with here. Bigbodied uh wide out gives you a pure quintessential ex receiver with an attitude and I love that. And then in the interior I went with the 335 lb Dante Corleó coming out of a Cincinnati. Great name uh first of all uh but 335 lbs plugs up the middle. fantastic nose tackle for you in case you want to be ready for life post Divine Godshaw. So, let me know what you think about those two and then we’ll continue to build off of that here throughout, but wanted to give you at least some mock draft uh situations here as we get closer and closer to the end of the season. Expect a few of these uh throughout the week as we move forward. So, can’t wait to hear your thoughts. All right, y’all. On tomorrow’s episode, why the run game worked in Carolina and the one piece that I would add to this team if I could right now. Don’t forget to catch us on the GF Coast Sports and Entertainment Network as well. and we’ll see you here tomorrow. We appreciate you very much as always making us a part of your day part of your routine for saying yes to me in the show. If you see me, please say hi. And if you need anything else around your New Orleans between these episodes, make sure you follow me on your favorite social media, RossJackna. Hit me up. Let me know the family’s doing how you living. Let me know how your moming them. And trust nation, I’ll holler at you.
The New Orleans Saints defense dominated the Carolina Panthers, holding their run game to just 3.2 yards per carry and limiting Bryce Young’s offense to under four yards per play. Demario Davis, Alontae Taylor, Cam Jordan, and Chase Young led the charge, while unsung heroes like Jonathan Bullard and Bryan Bresee fortified the trenches. Their ability to win at the line of scrimmage and adapt to Carolina’s schemes reflects Brandon Staley’s game-changing approach.
Kellen Moore looks to use the bye week for intensive self-scouting—a strategy that once transformed the Philadelphia Eagles into Super Bowl champions. Can Moore’s adjustments solve the Saints’ red zone woes and spark a more consistent offensive rhythm for stars like Tyler Shough, Alvin Kamara, and Devaughn Vele? Plus, two three-round mock drafts explore intriguing prospects like Arvell Reese and Caleb Downs, as the Saints eye the future with building blocks and renewed promise.
0:00 Saints Defense Dominates Panthers
10:59 Unsung Heroes Of The Win
19:11 Bye Week Self-Scouting Pivotal
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LouisianaSports.Net’s Ross Jackson hosts the Locked On Saints Podcast keeping the Who Dat Nation up-to-date with everything you need to know about your beloved New Orleans Saints.
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On Twitter: https://twitter.com/RossJacksonNOLA
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21 comments
⚜️WHO DAT?!⚜️
Downs doesn't get out of the 1st rd
I say go after guard in free agency. We need playmakers
It depends on the draft depth at each position of need. If we can get a player in the 2nd that is almost as good as one in the first then take the guy where his position drops off majorly in subsequent rounds.
28-3 anybody? Haha
They finally started blitzing on 3rd downs and also throughout the game.. you don’t let QBs especially bad ones like Young sit back and throw, you rattle them
Pfft… let's not get carried away Ross
I still want Fernando Mendoza as our 1st pick…
If not him Ruben baines!!
Listen am not trying to down play this but .. rico dowle all game battled a injury and Bryce young sucks… Don't eat the cheese .. this win isn't is big a we think .. am kinda glad we won… I want that 1st pick..
Carolina isn't a gd team… I Wanna see this against a playoff team… Carolina has been terrible on offense except for dowle… I've seen this script too many times , beat a bad team and get whooped vs a gd team… Falcons game will say a lot. Who Dat forever
If im the Saints,im drafting the best CB available don't give a darn where the draft falls
Rossssss
Ross, bold statement here: Saints go 6-1 going forward! Let's Geaux!
A shutdown corner 1st , a LB with Speed , a TE from Penn State , Iowa , Wisconsin, or Stanford
Ross Jackson! Ever the optimist! I hear ya my dude but I don’t think the saints traded 2 draft picks for good WR blocking only 🫠
Dude has to start catching some balls lol
Scoring only 7 points against the Saints is bad. That's the least amount of points scored against the Saints this season. Even the Giants scored 14 points against the Saints with a rookie QB. The Seahawks scored 44 points. The Rams scored 34 points.
The loss to the Rams wasn't that bad. Matthew Stafford has 20 TDs and 0 interceptions in his last 6 games. He has 12 TDs and 0 interceptions in his last 3 games. Stafford could be the most dangerous QB in the NFL
Bryce Young is the Spencer Rattler of the Carolina Panthers
It seems like Kellen Moore is in way over his head. It seems like he has no situational awareness with his decision making.
Cesar Ruiz should have been traded. He's the worst starting guard in the NFL
The Saints need to draft another running back. Alvin Kamara is past his prime.