Young tore his ACL in his second season and had neck surgery shortly after signing with the Saints in ’24. He didn’t miss any games last season but previous injuries hampered his production. The calf injury which sidelined him the first five games this year did not.

“People don’t know what I’ve been through in my career,” he said. “It’s all God, man. I remember moments being in the dark place at times and just staying down. People say, ‘stay down,’ but you don’t know what it’s like to stay down until you’ve got to do it. Just staying down and just God keeping His hand on me, that’s all I can really say about that.”

Davis, who had a career-best 143 tackles this season, and Jordan, the franchise all-time leader with 132 sacks — his team-leading 10.5 this season is the franchise-record seventh time he totaled 10 or more sacks in a season — also have been hands-on.

“(Young) was somebody that kind of came to me right away and was just like, ‘Whatever you’ve got, I want it. I want to know how you train, however you take care of your body, I want to know about it,'” Davis said. “That stood out.”

But his interests extended beyond the field. “We had a lot of conversations about not just being a great player, but be a great man, be a great leader. There are never days off. It ain’t like you just come and you put in work on the football field and then you turn it off when you go on about your life. And I watched him grow as a man, I watched him grow as a human being, I watched him grow as a person.

“He knew what he had to do. He was like, ‘DD, just hold me accountable. I know what I’ve got to do to change.’ And he did it. He won all those battles in the dark, and I think that’s just a reflection of life. Of what’s possible. Everybody has those individual battles and the story will follow your journey. Publicly what happens will be directly reflective of what happens in the dark. And I think everybody is seeing the type of player that Chase Young is capable of being, but it’s because of what he has done in the dark.”

Jordan, too, has had a hand in his development.

“I don’t know if I’m a leader or not,” Jordan said. “I know who I am as a person. I’ve never had to change or be something that I’m not. He has embraced our culture, for sure. If anything, he has accepted the challenge of getting better and he understands what it is to be able to play each and every snap. He’s been a great addition to the team and you’ve seen how he has taken off this year. I love when he has that kind of success.”