per NFL Network’s Mike Garafolo<\/a>. We’re still waiting on word from Cameron Jordan in free agency, but Garafolo reports that Jonathan Bullard is signing a one-year deal with the Dallas Cowboys worth up to $2.5 million. If he hits his incentives, that could be a nice pay raise over the $1.4 million the Saints paid him last year. A former Chicago Bears third-round pick from the Florida Gators, Bullard has played for six different teams since turning pro in 2016: the Arizona Cardinals, Seattle Seahawks, Atlanta Falcons, Minnesota Vikings, and most recently the Saints.<\/p>\nBullard, 32, logged 327 snaps on defense last season and didn’t miss a tackle on 209 reps in run defense. But he didn’t offer much on passing downs, notching just three passes and a couple of passes batted down at the line of scrimmage on 116 snaps. He was also penalized twice, once for defensive holding and later for a neutral zone infraction. Now he’ll be moving on and hope to elevate a Cowboys defense that met historic lows in 2025.<\/p>\n
It’s an opportunity for the Saints to get younger. Of their five interior defensive linemen who saw 100-plus snaps last year, only Bryan Bresee was under 30 years of age. Bullard may have been a backup but that meant a 32-year old was backing up Nathan Shepherd (32) and Davon Godchaux (31) while splitting reps with Jonah Williams (30). That isn’t sustainable, especially for a rebuilding defense. With Bresee’s future up in the air — the Saints have not picked up his fifth-year option for 2027, and must choose to do so by May 1 — and 2025 draft pick Vernon Broughton returning from a season-ending injury, the position group lacks a long-term vision. Bringing back John Ridgeway III is fine for depth but he only managed 73 snaps in four games while dealing with injury. Don’t be shocked if the Saints spend an early-round pick on a defensive tackle in the 2026 NFL Draft.<\/p>\n
Expert NFL picks: Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"March 28, 2026, 11:26 a.m. CT Another former New Orleans Saints defensive lineman will be playing elsewhere in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":840495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[95878,7,6,15505,96128,95882,97765,96771,97761,97762,96129,95897,96099,95883,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-840494","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-sstssportsnflsaints","12":"tag-sstsnsaints","13":"tag-tagamerican-football","14":"tag-tagbryan-bresee","15":"tag-tagcameron-jordan","16":"tag-tagjohn-ridgeway-iii","17":"tag-tagjonathan-bullard","18":"tag-tagnew-orleans-saints","19":"tag-tagoverall-negative","20":"tag-tagsec-conference-football","21":"tag-tagsports-news","22":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840494","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=840494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/840494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/840495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=840494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=840494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=840494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}