There are 79 days remaining before the New Orleans Saints kick off their 2025 regular season with a home showdown against the Arizona Cardinals. It’ll be their 59th NFL season, but first under new head coach Kellen Moore after a 5-12 record last year. Offensive lineman Josh Ball currently wears number 79 for New Orleans. A late-season pickup in 2024, Ball is our Saints Player of the Day.

Name (age): Josh Ball (27)

Position: Offensive tackle

Height, weight: 6-foot-8, 304 pounds

Relative Athletic Score: 7.80

2025 salary cap hit: $960,000

An all-state and four-star recruit at Stafford High School in Virginia, Ball started his collegiate career at Florida State. He’d earn a starting job at left tackle for the Seminoles midway through his 2017 freshman campaign. Expected to be the starter at right tackle in 2018, Ball was instead suspended for the year by Florida State for off-field issues. He’d transfer to Butler Community College for that year, then transferred to Marshall in 2019. That season, he’d earn the starting left tackle role by the end of the year. Ball earned 1st Team All-Conference USA honors with the Thundering Herd in 2020, starting all eight contests of an abbreviated season because of Covid.

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The Dallas Cowboys selected Ball in Round 4 of the 2021 NFL Draft. However, an ankle injury forced him to miss all of his rookie season. Upon his return in 2022, Ball appeared sparingly as a reserve at both left and right tackle through 13 games. A hip injury caused Ball to miss the entire 2023 campaign. He was released by the Cowboys at the end of training camp last year, but was brought back to the practice squad.

Ball did not appear in any regular season contests last season. The Saints signed him to their active roster off the Dallas practice squad late in the year. Ball will try to resurrect his career by earning a swing tackle spot with New Orleans this summer. To do it, he’ll have to beat out fellow reserves Landon Young, Josiah Ezirim, and rookie Easton Kilty behind projected starters Taliese Fuaga and Kelvin Banks Jr.

This article originally appeared on Saints Wire: Countdown to Kickoff: Josh Ball is the Saints Player of Day 79