While the New Orleans Saints fell to the Los Angeles Chargers 27-13 on Sunday, there was still plenty of positives to walk away with. Several players stood out, but this guy really caught my attention.<\/p>\n
The first breakout player of the 2025 NFL season was flying all over the field and made a strong case for a roster spot by taking full advantage of his opportunity. The breakout player from the Saints\u2019 preseason opener loss to the Chargers is LB Isaiah Stalbird.<\/p>\n
The South Dakota State Jackrabbits alum and former defensive back was one of the stars of training camp in 2024 as an UDFA but only saw snaps on special teams as a rookie. After another strong camp, the 25-year-old is looking to secure a larger role in year two, and with the performance he just had, it wouldn\u2019t come as a surprise.<\/p>\n
Against the Chargers, Stalbird posted a team-high eight tackles (six solo), two stops, two pressures, and a monster tackle for a loss of six yards, earning a 73.4 overall grade from Pro Football Focus (76.2 tackling, 73.9 pass rush). Stalbird impressed as a blitzer; his speed flashed off the snap like he was shot out of a cannon, and he always seemed to be nearby when the whistle blew.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While the New Orleans Saints fell to the Los Angeles Chargers 27-13 on Sunday, there was still plenty…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":282748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2076],"tags":[7,896,55,26949,401,2588,30696,2572,2571,6,397],"class_list":{"0":"post-282747","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-orleans-saints","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-new-orleans","10":"tag-new-orleans-saints","11":"tag-new-orleans-saints-preseason","12":"tag-new-orleans-saints-news","13":"tag-new-orleans-saints-roster","14":"tag-new-orleans-saints-training-camp","15":"tag-neworleans","16":"tag-neworleanssaints","17":"tag-nfl","18":"tag-saints"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115017072442683619","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=282747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/282747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/282748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=282747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=282747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=282747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}