It’s time to seriously consider Saints edge rusher Cameron Jordan for NFL Defensive Player of the Year

The two words that immediately come to mind when I think about Saints edge rusher Cameron Jordan are “remarkably consistent.” Every single week of the NFL season you can expect to find him clowning the opposition.

And I mean every week.

To date, Jordan has played in every single game of his nine-year career since the Saints selected him with the 24th pick of the 2011 draft. But remember, I said remarkably consistent. Jordan has been on the field for all those games, but he’s also been dominant from week to week and year to year. You’re talking about a guy who has notched at least 7.5 sacks in every season, aside from his rookie year, and double-digit sacks five times. With that outstanding body of work, Jordan has now amassed 85 career sacks. That puts him at 58th on the all-time NFL sacks list, and he has shown no signs of slowing down so far.

Mind you, for as consistently dominant as he’s been over the years, Jordan has never actually ended a season leading the league in sacks. He’s never won a Defensive Player of the Year award, either. The truth is while he has made a few Pro Bowls, Jordan has also only made one All-Pro first team.

He isn’t quite as underrated as Chandler Jones, but I will say that Jordan is another one of those guys whose film is actually more impressive than his stats, which as I’ve already noted, are pretty damn impressive in their own right. There is absolutely nothing passive about his game, which makes his film fun to watch.

At the same time, he plays with a kind of controlled aggression that helps to keep him from falling for a bunch of foolishness. You aren’t likely to bamboozle Jordan with a bunch of window dressing with your blocking scheme, because he reads his keys well even when he’s going 100 mph. He is a living, breathing headache for most offensive linemen.

Where Jordan is most remarkable in his consistency, however, is his exemplary effort. Jordan plays at the same speed late in the fourth quarter as he does on the first play of the game. I am sure he does get tired at times during each game, especially since he always plays at a hair-on-fire tempo, but you would be hard-pressed to find evidence of it once the ball is snapped. He’s like the Energizer Bunny; he just keeps going and going and going until he eventually wears you down.

If you falter or hesitate for even one second Jordan is going to take advantage of that. Because, see, he’s not going to take a play off. He’s gonna line up and bring his 12 pack of Ye Olde Whup Ass with him until that whistle blows. And guess what? Even if you can keep him off your quarterback for the better part of three quarters, Jordan still has the ability to embarrass you in front of your people before the game ends.

Just ask the Falcons.

You want to talk about remarkable consistency?

How about the fact that, according to the broadcast, coming into the Week 13 game against the Falcons, Jordan had already sacked Atlanta quarterback Matt Ryan 14 times over the course of his career. The way Jordan has made Ryan smell his cologne, you would think the Falcons would’ve learned their lesson by now and tried to send some extra attention his way all game. Especially since they have a rookie Kaleb McGary starting at right tackle. But even if their gameplan coming into the game hadn’t called for double-teaming Jordan or sending McGary help all game, surely they would adjust after he already had three sacks that night, right?

Yeah, no.

The Falcons just didn’t think fat meat was greasy on Thanksgiving, so Jordan had to end up teaching them another lesson in the spirit of the holiday. Rather than sharing a bit of turkey and dressing, Jordan decided to serve McGary an extra helping of “these hands.”

Of course, I wouldn’t be surprised if you turned the game off after the Saints went up 26-9 with over six minutes left. If you were one of those people who didn’t watch the game all the way to the end, you missed a pretty great comeback by Atlanta that came up just a bit short. You also missed the Falcons recovering three (!) onside kicks — two of which actually counted — to help fuel their frantic comeback. Down eight points with under a minute left in the game, however, they were finally running out of chances to tie things up.

While they were facing a fourth-and 8 from the New Orleans 44-yard line, you can see that the Falcons had a chance for at least a first-down conversion.

The Saints were running man-to-man coverage with two deep safeties, so the idea was for the rub routes to spring the outside receiver, Russell Gage, who was coming inside on a slant. All Ryan had to do was hit Gage with a relatively easy pass that allowed him to keep running without breaking stride, and Gage would’ve had nothing but about 35 yards of green grass in front of him. He might’ve scored. Regardless, if that ball is completed things very likely would’ve gotten pretty interesting.

In theory, the Falcons had enough bodies to at least send a chip block McGary’s way on that play. A chip might not have been enough, but it at least would’ve been something.

Instead, McGary ended up being all by his lonesome to try to block Jordan.

Fucking Mistake!

Jordan shot up the field on the snap of the football, but he didn’t give anything away to McGary as he approached him. McGary, being the young guy that he is, tried to do his normal kick steps, then punch in the same rhythm he probably always does. The problem with punching in rhythm like that when facing a wily vet like Jordan is that it allows him to time when the punch is going to come.

As soon as McGary went to shoot his hands at Jordan’s chest, Jordan forcefully swiped with both of his hands and swatted McGary’s wrists away with ease as he continued around the edge.

At that point, it was just a matter of Jordan dipping his shoulder low and turning a tight corner so that he didn’t drift deeper than the quarterback’s depth. Once he had Ryan in his sights, Jordan mashed the gas and reached out that long right arm of his to swipe at the ball to keep Ryan from getting the pass off before Jordan could run through his chest. Ryan went from thinking he had an easy completion that might have put them in position to tie the game, to getting picked up and slammed to the turf, effectively ending the game and clinching the NFC South for the Saints.

It would have been easy for a lot of players in Jordan’s position to convince themselves to take that play off. I mean it was fourth down with not a lot of time left, the Falcons were more than 40 yards from the end zone, and the guy already had three sacks on the game, including one on the first play of that drive.

And yet I’m not sure if Jordan even knows how to take a play off.

After his four-sack performance in the win over Atlanta, Jordan has 13.5 sacks on the year, trailing Buccaneers edge rusher Shaquil Barrett by one (you know, the guy I told y’all was legit in the first month of the season). That still puts Jordan in spitting distance of winning his first sack title. Even if he doesn’t ultimately catch Barrett, Jordan set a career high in sacks this season, and he still has four games left to play.

With his team sitting at 10-2 and in the driver’s seat for the No. 1 seed in the NFC, it’s well past time to start thinking about Jordan as a legit Defensive Player of the Year candidate. He has always been a monster on the field, but this year he’s taking that remarkable consistency of his to a whole new level.

A lot of folks started to count New Orleans out once Drew Brees had to miss several games with a thumb injury, but the Saints managed to win every game without Brees, and Jordan had quite a bit to do with that. If there has been an obviously more impactful performance from anyone on defense this year, I must be overlooking it.

There is a lot that can change in the last four weeks of the season, of course, one thing that won’t change is Jordan’s performance on the field. Take it as a warning or as a promise, but opposing offensive lines should take heed most of all.