There are 94 days to go until the New Orleans Saints kick off their 2024 season with the Carolina Panthers, which means Cameron Jordan — the current owner of the No. 94 jersey — is our Saints Player of the Day. We’re counting down to kickoff by highlighting each player in the corresponding jersey number until Sept. 8.
Jordan is coming off of a down year, which may feel inevitable this late in his career. But before we get to his goals for 2024, let’s reflect on the road that brought him here:
- Name (Age): Cameron Jordan (34)
- Position: Defensive end
- Height, weight: 6-foot-4, 287 pounds
- Relative Athletic Score: 8.86
- 2024 salary cap hit: $13,852,250
- College: California
- Drafted: First round in 2011 (New Orleans Saints)
- NFL experience: 14 seasons
Jordan is the Saints’ official all-time sacks leader (with 117.5 of them) but he only had two sacks last season before an ankle injury limited his snap counts. In 2022, 5 of his 8.5 sacks came in just two games. He isn’t the same pass rusher he once was, and the Saints shouldn’t keep asking him to play the same role in their defense. But they don’t have many better options with Payton Turner and Isaiah Foskey developing so slowly. Tanoh Kpassagnon’s injury takes him off the board, too. The hope is Chase Young can add enough to thee pass rush opposite Carl Granderson to make up for Jordan’s decline, but he’s dealing with his own injury.
It isn’t a great situation. By all accounts the Saints are still intending on Jordan playing a lot of snaps and starting with Granderson. Until someone steps up to help Jordan shoulder the load, he’s going to continue playing heavy minutes on Sundays. He maintained an impressive pace of at least 7.5 sacks per season from 2012 to 2022, but those days may be behind him.
If that’s the case, we’re saying Jordan should aim for 5.5 sacks in 2024. That would be an improvement and tie Rickey Jackson for the Saints’ unofficial all-time record at Pro Football Reference. Sacks were not officially tracked until 1982, which didn’t include Jackson’s rookie season in 1981, so his unofficial total is 123. Seeing Jordan tie that would be good. Beating it would be great.
