Saints’ pass rush needs boost, Chase Young return

By Ross Jackson

If there’s one area the New Orleans Saints could end up improving on quickly this season, it’s in pressure generation on defense. The Saints currently rank No. 31 in the NFL in pressure percentage with 24.5%, per Pro Football Focus. The team ranks just .2% better than the Carolina Panthers. 

At the same time, the team is tied for tenth in sacks across the league with eight, tied with division opponents the Atlanta Falcons and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, as well as the New York Giants and Pittsburgh Steelers. That shows some promise with the team to be able to disrupt opposing quarterbacks in the rare instances in which the defense can get to the quarterback.

The Saints are hoping to add their top pass rusher, defensive end Chase Young, back into the mix sooner than later. Young has missed the opening three weeks of action with a calf injury, a longer absence than initially expected. But that could be an example of the team playing the short term safe in favor of long-term security.

“He’s doing everything he can,” head coach Kellen Moore said Monday in his day-after media availability. “I know his desire is to be out there as soon as humanly possible. But you have to understand that the medical aspect of this thing is real and you’ve got to do what’s right for him, not just this week, but from a season-long perspective.”

Chase Young’s return should eventually boost the Saints’ pass rush. A Week 4 debut vs. the Bills would be good news, but tough to gauge his true impact. But the season-long impact of his return isn’t hard to fathom once things fall into place and catch a rhythm.

The Saints secured 39 sacks in 2024. 31 of them came with Young on the field, who spent over 480 snaps as a pass rusher last year. In the approximately 200 snaps that he was not on the field, the Saints wrangled just eight. New Orleans also saw boosts in its pressure generation with more than 60% of their pressures coming from plays with Young in the lineup. That signals about a 7% boost in pressure percentage with Young on the field versus off.

If New Orleans saw that same leap through the first three games of 2025, its second-to-last 24.5% pressure rate would instead hover around 31.5%, placing them just above the Cincinnati Bengals at No. 24. 

While that ranking may not be exciting, it’s certainly better than ranking among the bottom of the league and would place them closer to last year’s trend of generating a decent amount of pressure, finishing No. 18 with 33.5%. The difference is that in 2025, the team had done a better job finishing those plays and converting sacks with a near 2% boost and top-10 ranking in sack percentage to start 205.