{"id":696218,"date":"2026-01-22T12:08:15","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T12:08:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/696218\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T12:08:15","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T12:08:15","slug":"the-grades-are-in-for-the-saints-defense-in-the-2025-season-saints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/696218\/","title":{"rendered":"The grades are in for the Saints defense in the 2025 season | Saints"},"content":{"rendered":"

The seemingly ageless Demario Davis<\/a> was the New Orleans Saints\u2019<\/a> highest graded defensive player for the 2025 season, according to Pro Football Focus<\/a>, a Cincinnati, Ohio-based analytics company used by NFL teams.<\/p>\n

Davis\u2019s grade of 80.3 led the Saints defense and ranked fifth among NFL linebackers that played 50 percent of their team\u2019s snaps in the 2025 season.<\/p>\n

In his 14th NFL season, Davis recorded a career-high 143 tackles, which led the Saints and ranked 12th in the NFL. Davis, who turned 37 last week, also ranked among the Saints\u2019 team leaders in tackles for loss (6) and forced fumbles (2), all while playing a team-high 1,079 defensive snaps.<\/p>\n

A PFF grade of 80.3 is considered\u00a0very good. It typically reflects a player in the upper tier of starters during a given season, just below a Pro Bowl level.<\/p>\n

The PFF grading scale considers players at 90-or-above as elite, 85-89.9 as Pro Bowl level, 70-84.9 as starter level, 60-69.9 as average or backup-up level and below 60 as below average or replacement level.<\/p>\n

Defensive ends Chase Young and Cam Jordan were the next highest ranked defenders with grades of 78.0 and 76.0, respectively. Jordan (10.5) and Young (10.0) led the Saints in sacks this season.<\/p>\n

Second-year cornerback Kool-Aid McKinstry was the highest graded defender in the secondary at 69.5. He led the Saints with three interceptions.<\/p>\n

Linebacker Danny Stutsman was the highest graded rookie at 71.5, but he played only 205 snaps. Rookie classmates, safety Jonas Sanker and cornerback Quincy Riley, received grades of 62.4 and 61.1, respectively.<\/p>\n

Defensive tackle Bryan Bresee was the lowest graded defensive player at 52.9. Veteran defensive tackles Davon Godchaux and Jonah Williams were also ranked near the bottom of the roster with grades of 50.5 and 41.6, respectively, although neither played more than half of the unit\u2019s snaps.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The seemingly ageless Demario Davis was the New Orleans Saints\u2019 highest graded defensive player for the 2025 season,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2076],"tags":[7,4095,896,55,2572,2571,6,397],"class_list":{"0":"post-696218","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-hardwall","10":"tag-new-orleans","11":"tag-new-orleans-saints","12":"tag-neworleans","13":"tag-neworleanssaints","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-saints"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115938676526838193","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696218","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=696218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}