Tag: Carl Granderson

Countdown to Kickoff, Day 96: Carl Granderson is the Saints Player of the Day

Carl Granderson is the New Orleans Saints Player of Day 96. The team’s breakout pass rusher is chasing greater heights in 2024:

Carl Granderson has been a productive player in the New Orleans Saints’ rotation at defensive end going into 2023, but he leveled up last season. Granderson led the team with 8.5 sacks and 20 quarterback hits, plus 14 tackles for loss. They’ll be counting on him to match those numbers again in 2024. Before we get to his goals, let’s get to know him a little better:

  • Name (Age): Carl Granderson (27)
  • Position: Defensive end
  • Height, weight: 6-foot-5, 261 pounds
  • Relative Athletic Score: 7.70
  • 2024 salary cap hit: $5,250,000
  • College: Wyoming
  • Drafted: Undrafted in 2019 (New Orleans Saints)
  • NFL experience: 6 seasons

The Saints are hoping for a bounce-back year from Cameron Jordan along with a big  impact from free agent pickup Chase Young, but it’s likely going to be Granderson shouldering the heaviest load this season. He’s the most reliable player in the group, and right now he’s the only one healthy enough to fully participate in spring practices.

So what are reasonable expectations for him in 2024? Granderson has the skills to reach double-digit sacks, but it isn’t something he’s done before, and that isn’t the bar we should be setting for him. It’s something he could achieve with better play from those around him, which is why Young was brought into the fold.

With that in mind, we’re looking to last year’s numbers as the goal Granderson should work to reach. He played really well in his first year as a starter and set a new standard for himself. If he can match that production and bag eight or nine sacks again, this will end up looking like another good year for him.

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PFF ranks Carl Granderson among the NFL’s 32 best defensive ends

Pro Football Focus ranked Carl Granderson among the NFL’s 32 best defensive ends going into the 2024 season. Expectations are high for the former UDFA:

Carl Granderson isn’t underrated anymore. The New Orleans Saints defensive end broke out in 2023, and he’s attracting notice from the likes of Pro Football Focus. PFF’s Trevor Sikkema ranked Granderson among the NFL’s 32 best edge defenders — an in-house category that lumps together traditional defensive ends like Granderson with pass-rushing outside linebackers from odd-front defenses.

Here’s why Sikkema argues Granderseon is the 28th-best player among his peers:

Granderson put together the best two seasons of his career in 2022 and 2023, with overall grades of 80.5 and 74.0, respectively. His run defense has been his calling card, highlighted by grades above 70.0 in each of the past two years. His 62 quarterback pressures in 2023 were by far the most in any single season in his NFL career.

That’s high praise, and expectations are high for the former undrafted free agent. Granderson has developed better than several teammates the Saints have drafted at the same position group since signing with the team as an undrafted rookie out of Wyoming. Now he’s expected to lead the charge opposite Cameron Jordan and Chase Young, and with both of those players managing injuries in the offseason he’ll have ample opportunities.

Still, it would be better if the Saints didn’t have to lean so hard on one single player off the edge. Getting more production out of young draft picks like Isaiah Foskey (the No. 40 pick in 2023) or Payton Turner (the No. 28 pick back in 2021) would do a lot to relieve the pressure on guys at the top of the depth chart like Granderson, Jordan, or Young. The best pass-rush units around the league work like hockey teams and rotate a powerful second line into games while spelling the starters. Maybe the Saints can take a similar approach, but it’ll be tough to do so without veteran backup Tanoh Kpassagnon.

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TD Wire says Carl Granderson is the Saints’ most underrated player

Touchdown Wire says Carl Granderson is the Saints’ most underrated player. The team’s 2023 sacks leader looks to repeat that feat in 2024:

Touchdown Wire’s Doug Farrar highlighted the most underrated player for all 32 teams in the NFL, and defensive end Carl Granderson was his choice for the New Orleans Saints.

The team’s 2023 sacks leader is looking to repeat that feat in 2024 — Granderson broke out last year by nearly doubling his snap count after working his way into the starting lineup, posting career-highs in sacks, tackles, and pressures.

Even after signing Chase Young in free agency while bringing back Payton Turner from a season-long injury (and with Isaiah Foskey pushing for reps), the Saints are going to be leaning hard on Granderson again this season. They’ll need more from him as Cameron Jordan’s career draws to a close.

Here’s why Farrar argues Granderson deserves more acknowledgement around the league:

Josh Allen, Jim Kiick, Conrad Dobler, Tashaun Gipson Sr., Jay Novacek, and Dave Hampton have all had nice careers after coming out of Wyoming, and Saints edge-rusher Carl Granderson is looking to add his name to that roll. An undrafted free agent who signed on with New Orleans in 2019, Granderson worked his way up from roster afterthought to key piece in the Saints’ defense, and he was rewarded with a four-year, $52 million contract extension with $32.3 million guaranteed last September. All he did after that was to put up career years in just about every possible category with nine sacks and 63 total pressures.

While Granderson has the speed to get around the edge, his premier skill has him wasting blockers with pure power to beat one-on-ones and double teams.

It’s going to be fascinating to see how the Saints divide snaps and roles to the different players they’ve stacked up at defensive end. Granderson should be starting again opposite Jordan, whose reps should decline to make room for Young on third downs and obvious passing situations. Making room for Turner, Foskey, and the always-underrated Tanoh Kpassgnon is going to be challenging for a Saints defense which typically dresses just four players each week on game days. Whoever ends up in the rotation, expect Granderson to lead the charge.

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Teaming up Cameron Jordan with Chase Young could bring out the best of them

Teaming up Cameron Jordan with Chase Young could bring out their best. Their strengths and weaknesses compliment each other:

Look at Chase Young and Cameron Jordan and you’ll see two players in very different stages of their careers. Jordan is putting the finishing touches on a career he hopes will earn him a place in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Young is joining the New Orleans Saints with visions of catapulting his career to greater heights, where he’ll earn a life-changing contract in a year or two and join Jordan on that Hall of Fame trajectory.

And Jordan, 10 years Young’s senior, is a different player now than he was a decade ago. He’s still reliable in run defense; few defensive ends set a harder edge and give up less ground when opposing offenses test them. However, age and injuries and wear and tear have taken a toll, and Jordan lacks that extra step to close in on the quarterback and finish a distracting pressure with a drive-killing a sack.

Young is in the opposite situation. He’s as disruptive against the pass as they come, consistently beating his blocker off the snap and getting into the backfield to breathe down the quarterback’s neck. But he’s known as someone who shies away from contact when teams run at him, with a bad habit of loafing around and letting his teammates rally to the ball instead.

So this is a unique opportunity for them to bring out the best in each other. At this stage in his career, Jordan should be a two-down player who can stop the run and bring some pressure when teams drop back to pass. And Young is exactly the type of player who should be stepping in for him on third downs and obvious long-yardage passing situations, where he won’t be asked to hold ground in run defense. They can play to each other’s strengths while minimizing their weaknesses.

Having the two of them together is a good teaching opportunity, and it’s something Young says he’s looking forward to experiencing. Young was asked about the situation the Saints have set up for him to learn from Jordan,  which he says he’s eager to embrace.

“That’s definitely something big for me, that I’m excited to do,” Young said Monday during his introductory press conference. “A future Hall of Famer, a guy who I can spend time with, who I can just absorb the game from. I’m definitely excited about Big Cam.”

Jordan was miscast as the Saints’ No. 2 pass rusher last year even before an ankle injury set him back through the back half of the season; Carl Granderson is a fine No. 2 option himself, but the group was missing a lead rusher to stet them both up for success. Young can do that. He had more pressures (74, including the playoffs) than both Granderson (58) and Jordan (45).

Even if Young is focused on playing the pass, there should be plenty of snaps to go around. The Saints faced 226 third downs last year. Opposing offenses needed 10 or more yards on 15 first downs and 133 second downs. If Young subbed in for Jordan on that exact number of plays (and, for the sake of this exercise, they were all passes by the offense) then it would be 374 pass rush snaps, which is comparable to the split Bryan Bresee saw at defensive tackle in his rookie year; he played the pass on 386 snaps while stopping the run just 148 times. A similar rotation could benefit Young and Jordan, too.

Letting players do what they do best sounds easy enough, but it can be tough to pull off. Ambitious young men don’t want to leave the field any more than their prideful elders. But the Saints didn’t sign Young without a clear vision for how he’ll fit into their rotation. If he takes point on passing downs (which, for the Saints, were about 67.2% of their defensive snaps in 2023) with Granderson rushing off the opposite end and Jordan putting his efforts into stopping the run, it just might bring out the best in everyone. That has to be the plan with Jordan’s career drawing to a close and Young hoping to cash in after playing out this prove-it deal in New Orleans. Let’s see if the team can carry out that vision, or if they have something else in mind.

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Chase Young signing with Saints may signal the end of Payton Turner era

Chase Young will be taking someone’s spot in the rotation after the Saints signed him. It just might be Payton Turner’s:

Chase Young will be taking someone’s spot in the rotation after the New Orleans Saints signed him to a one-year, $13 million contract on Monday (with every dollar guaranteed once his pen touched paper). The Saints are bringing back all of their major contributors from 2023 at defensive end, but the group performed so poorly that it makes sense for Young to elbow someone aside.

It just might be Payton Turner drawing the short straw. The 2021 first-round pick hasn’t lived up to expectations, and it’s almost a foregone conclusion that the Saints will not pick up his fifth-year option for 2025 before May’s deadline. Between injuries and coach’s decisions based on his too-slow progress, Turner has only played 15 games through his first three years, without a single start.

Cameron Jordan and Carl Granderson are locked in, and Tanoh Kpassagnon also played major snaps last year (23.8 per game). Backups Isaiah Foskey and Kyle Phillips got a few looks here and there. If Young can fill in for Jordan on third downs and obvious passing situations, limiting the old pro’s snap counts, there may not be many more reps to go around. Phillips is an unrestricted free agent who has not been retained. Foskey’s development has been slow, like Turner’s, but he’s only entering his second year in the NFL.

So it’ll probably be Turner or Kpassagnon being squeezed out. They share surprisingly similar skill sets as defensive linemen who can set the edge or slide inside, and the financials are similar, too. Turner’s 2024 salary cap hit is set at just over $3.9 million. Trading or releasing him after June 1 (during or after training camp, too) would save the Saints $2.3 million. Kpassagnon’s cap hit is $3.3 million and moving him this summer would save the team $2.5 million against the cap.

And of those two, Kpassagnon has been the better player for the Saints. He’s been healthy and productive and played more games. That might make him a more appealing asset to other teams. At the same time, Kpassagnon will turn 30 in June, and the aging Saints defense has been a point of contention among fans. It’s possible Turner plays well enough in practices over the summer that it’s a real question of who makes the cut, and another team could swoop in to make New Orleans a trade offer they can’t refuse. It would be a good problem to have.

It’s just a shame Turner hasn’t met expectations to this point in his career. Some of it is his own fault with up-and-down performances when he’s been available. Some of it is on the coaching staff for preferring to run with older teammates in some games. But so much of the problem isn’t anyone’s fault. Injuries happen in the NFL, and Turner has been hit harder than most. We’ll see if he can bounce back with the stakes going higher in 2024.

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Tracking Saints’ moves to get under the 2024 salary cap

We’re tracking New Orleans Saints’ moves to get under the 2024 salary cap. It’s a mad dash to the finish line ahead of free agency:

It’s time for one of the most interesting parts of the New Orleans Saints season: how they manage to get under the salary cap once again.

There was good news for the Saints recently as the NFL announced the 2024 salary cap with a big raise — the cap went up $30.6 million from last year to $255.4 million. That will give the Saints more room to maneuver around, given that they are used to making it work with a lot less.

A lot that will be done over the next few weeks will be restructuring existing contracts. They keep restructuring in mind when forming their contracts in the first place, just one tool that the front office uses to stay ahead of things. They will also likely cut some players that they consider to be a bad value.

Here is a running tracker of every move the team makes to get under the salary cap. Our numbers are approximate, give or take a couple million dollars, and there are so many moving parts this time of the year it’s near-impossible to nail things down to the nth degree. So check this space often for updates:

6 moves the Saints should make to get back into the playoffs in 2024

The New Orleans Saints should do these six things if they want to get back into the NFL playoffs for 2024

If the New Orleans Saints want to break a three-year playoff draught, some changes are going to have to be made. The Saints are getting older and need to get younger while also simultaneously improving at a few position groups. The biggest area of weakness for the team on both sides of the ball is the trenches.

The Saints’ biggest issues on offense can be traced back to the struggles along the offensive line. The offense fell apart when protection weakened around Derek Carr. Defensively, the Saints struggled to rush the passer or stop the run. Here’s what they need to do to correct those problems and get back to the playoffs in 2024:

Carl Granderson labeled Saints’ surprise contributor in 2023

Carl Granderson had a career year in a bigger role. His contributions on the defensive line made him the Saints surprise contributor in 2023

NFL Network analyst Kevin Patra highlighted New Orleans Saints defensive end Carl Granderson as the team’s surprise contributor in 2023. Granderson was prepared for a greater role in his fifth year out of Wyoming. He was supposed to lead a rotation with Payton Turner and Isaiah Foskey. The rotation never came to fruition, but Granderson delivered on his own.

Here’s what Patra had to say in recapping Granderson’s year:

The Saints locked up the former undrafted free agent to a contract extension in September for good reason. The 27-year-old has become the club’s most reliable front-seven defender, leading the team with 8.5 sacks and 64 QB pressures (26 more than any other Saint), per NGS. His 60 stops were second-most for New Orleans, behind only Demario Davis (69), and ranking fourth among all defensive linemen. Granderson’s ability to play in the backfield was essential for an up-and-down Saints club that otherwise struggled to get after the quarterback (New Orleans’ total of 34 sacks was tied for fourth-fewest in the league).

Granderson represented the lone bright spot at a position the Saints clearly need to invest in this offseason. When he was stepping into a bigger role, many had questions on how he’d perform. It is doubtful even the most optimistic people felt Granderson would be the most dependable defensive lineman for New Orleans in 2023.

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Saints’ NFL-worst salary cap situation isn’t as bad as it looks

The Saints have the worst salary cap situation in the league — on paper. But this year’s challenges aren’t as daunting as they’ve overcome before:

It’s another year with Mickey Loomis running the New Orleans Saints, which means it’s another offseason with 31 teams having more salary cap space to work with — on paper. The experts at Over The Cap estimate that the Saints are in the red by $83.6 million, assuming the cap rises to $242 million. That’s based off the $20 million leap it made last year.

And yeah, that’s a challenging situation to work with. But it’s not as daunting as some of the hurdles we’ve seen the Saints overcome before. There just aren’t many outgoing free agents that New Orleans will have to bid against other teams for; left tackle Andrus Peat, wide receiver Michael Thomas and quarterback Jameis Winston are the highest priorities to re-sign and none of them are ranked as top-100 free agents at Pro Football Focus.

So how will the Saints chip away at that $83.6 million and get under the cap? Expect them to start with their usual strategies of restructuring high base salaries into signing bonuses for key players like linebacker Demario Davis (saving about $8.1 million), defensive end Carl Granderson (yielding $7.2 million) and safety Tyrann Mathieu ($5.8 million in savings). The big domino is quarterback Derek Carr. His contract is set up for a restructure that would save more than $23 million against the cap, but it would basically guarantee a third year with him under center. If the Saints are confident he can carry his strong finish to the 2023 season over into 2024, they shouldn’t hesitate to pull that lever.

Those four moves get the Saints halfway to the finish line by themselves. There are other restructures in the cards but tougher negotiations on pay cuts with underperforming veterans have to be considered, too; it’s tough to justify high salaries for players who have missed a lot of time with injuries or suspensions, or who just haven’t met expectations. Hopefully things can work out differently so guys can help the team without losing money.

Our point here is that the Saints can reach cap compliance and then make room without losing many key free agents or cutting foundational players. They won’t have to kick off a fire sale (or, more accurately, they can’t, because of unique contract structures) to go the distance. They’ll get under the cap and add players in free agency.

The concern is whether all that hard work is worth it for a Dennis Allen-led team that hasn’t gotten to the playoffs with some of the easiest schedules in the league the last two years. Going all-in like this is smart when the team is competitive and winning playoff games. If the Saints can’t reach the postseason, what’s the point in all these cap gymnastics?

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Payton Turner designated to return from IR, won’t play vs. Giants

Payton Turner has worked hard to get back on the field after dislocated two toes in the Saints’ season-opener. He’s been designated to return to practice:

Here’s some positive progress from Payton Turner. The third-year defensive end dislocated two toes in the New Orleans Saints’ season opener, derailing what had been a productive summer for him. Turner didn’t miss a single rep at training camp and was active in all three Saints preseason games. It was a frustrating setback for a player who finally looked ready to step up.

And now he’s on his way back. The Saints designated Turner to return from injured reserve on Friday, opening his 21-day window in which to practice with the team and gain clearance to suit up in games again. It’s too soon for him to play on Sunday against the New York Giants, but it’s a positive development. Hopefully he can make an impact in the final three games down the stretch and, possibly, the playoffs.

The Saints pass rush can use all the help it can get. They’re tied for the third-fewest sacks in the league going into Week 15 (23). Their former sacks leader Trey Hendrickson has more sacks for the Cincinnati Bengals than the entire New Orleans defensive line put together. Getting a spark from Turner in the final weeks would be huge. Cameron Jordan has lost a step and Carl Granderson is their only real force off the edge; rookie draft pick Isaiah Foskey has been in and out of the lineup with a quadriceps injury. Here’s hoping Turner’s arrow keeps trending up and yields real results in the weeks ahead.

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