Cameron Jordan says poor defense, too many penalties explain Saints’ struggles

New Orleans Saints defensive end Cameron Jordan shifted blame from Drew Brees to his defense and team penalties on the Rich Eisen Show.

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What is wrong with the New Orleans Saints? To help hash it out, defensive end Cameron Jordan made an appearance on the Rich Eisen Show to reflect on the disappointing opening weeks of the season and also talk up his new podcast with Mark Ingram (we recapped their first episode with Alvin Kamara here).

When asked if he’s buying into the popular narrative that Drew Brees’ advanced age and receding arm talent is holding the team back, Jordan could only scoff.

“I’d like to say he was his most accurate last year, when the same narrative was around. And the most accurate he’s been in his career,” Jordan said.

When looking for flaws on his team, Jordan is more focused on laying blame at the feet of himself and his teammates on defense: “I mean, we’re talking about three games in, I feel like I’m putting [blame] on the defense more than the offense who just put up 30 points on the board.”

Jordan is right to blame his defense, and himself; he hasn’t had success against increased attention from blockers this year, going sackless in each of the first three games. Other should-be stars of the unit like cornerback Marshon Lattimore haven’t played to their talent level, allowing third-wheel receivers like Allen Lazard to have 100-plus yard games against them. They have to improve and justify all the resources invested into that side of the ball for New Orleans.

“This is something the rest of the team has to get better from,” Jordan continued. “This is something that we’ve sort of self-inflected a lot of our pains, our own wounds from penalties, on ourselves. We’re having 70 to 100 yards on penalties, especially on critical downs, this is something we have to clean up and get better from.”

The Saints currently lead the NFL in penalty yards, both in total but especially on defense. While the offense is tied for the 13th-most penalty yards yielded, the Saints defense ranks dead last, and has given up more free yardage than the next two teams put together.

And when asked what the Saints can do to turn this season around, and what it means to clean up those flaws, Jordan responded with something simple: getting a win against the Detroit Lions this Sunday. Doing the right things and making the right adjustments should get them back in the win column. Here’s hoping Jordan and the Saints are on the right track.

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