Countdown to Kickoff: Jaylan Ford is the Saints Player of Day 53

Just 53 days remain until the New Orleans Saints start their 2025 regular season with a home showdown against the Arizona Cardinals. This will be the 59th NFL season for New Orleans, but their first under new head coach Kellen Moore after a 5-12 finish last season by the team. Several players need to step up to improve upon that record. One of them is Jaylan Ford, an under-the-radar linebacker coming into his second year. Ford, who wears No. 53, gets a closer look as our Saints Player of the Day.

• Name (age): Jaylan Ford (23)

• Hometown: Frisco, Texas

• Position: Linebacker

• Height, weight: 6-foot-2, 240 pounds

• College: Texas Longhorns

• Relative Athletic Score: 8.30

   

• Drafted: Round 5, 175 overall in 2024 (Saints)

• NFL experience: 1 year

• 2025 salary cap hit: $1,023,569

Ford was a three-star recruit at Lone Star High School in Texas who decided on the in-state Longhorns. He was a reserve during his first two years, combining for 67 tackles that included seven for loss. His breakout was in 2022, when he had 10 stops for loss and 2 sacks while leading Texas with 119 tackles and 4 interceptions. As a senior, Ford again the Longhorns with 11 tackles for loss and 101 total stops with intercepting 2 balls and recording a sack. He was back-to-back first-team All-Big 12 in each of his final two seasons, with third-team All-American honors in 2022.

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The Saints selected Ford with their third of three choices in Round 3 of the 2024 NFL draft. Injuries slowed him a bit during the preseason, but New Orleans still saw enough to keep him on the active roster. In fact, the Saints kept him off the practice squad all year to make sure no other team could sign him away. Ford played in eight games during the course of the season. However, all of that action, 104 snaps, was on special teams with no defensive snaps. A broken leg suffered in Week 17 kept him limited through offseason activities, but he should be ready for the start of preseason.

At Texas, Jaylan Ford showed that he can be a playmaker against the pass and good instinctively against the run. Those traits, along with his open field agility, could be an excellent fit in new defensive coordinator Brandon Staley's scheme. Ford may be a young breakout candidate for the Saints defense in 2025.

This article originally appeared on Saints Wire: Countdown to Kickoff: Jaylan Ford is the Saints Player of Day 53