New Orleans Saints Defensive End Cameron Jordan
Video Call with New Orleans Media
Wednesday, December 2, 2020

I know you've seen this stat where you've sacked Matt Ryan more than any players ever sacked another quarterback. The names below you on the list include Bruce Smith, Derrick Thomas and Dexter Manley. That's quite a list. But explain this stat, why does Matt Ryan bring the best out in you?
"I have no idea what you're talking about. This week, I'm only focused on getting the next W. I think it's going to take a team, collective effort to not only keep Matt Ryan in the pocket, as well as, you know, contain the likes of Julio (Jones), and Calvin (Ridley)."

What about your play in particular? Do you think you're playing better over the last four or five weeks? Or the sack totals are what they are, but you've been playing about the same all along?
"Yeah, I mean, I think early on this season, again, I was catching a lot more double teams. And I've always said, if one person is getting doubled, then there's going to be singles. As well as, as the season went on, you know, you saw the defense come together. And I think we put together a stretch, where us a unit, you know, our secondary, our linebackers and on our front defensive line, have really elevated our play. So it's not more of an I thing, it's more of we thing, where we're all elevating our play at the right time. As well as, you know, when it comes down to it, I always told you, you know, I see myself, if I can't affect the pass, I'm playing the hell out the run. And eventually it all comes full circle. And I think you saw early on, I mean, if you're focused on me, Trey's (Hendrickson) going to get loose. If you try to, you know, get Trey (Hendrickson), then you know, now it's David Onyemata getting loose. We have depth at our D line, and we're taking advantage of what we can."

You always say that it's less about what the other offense is doing and more so about what you guys are doing defensively? Do you feel like you guys have done well defensively these last couple of months that have made you transform into the defense you are?
"Yeah, absolutely. When it comes down to it, again, I've been saying it's been our defensive unit, it's been our collective effort. And it's all about focusing on what we can do, what we do best and how we can affect the offense. You know, I trust Double D (Demario Davis), I trust Kwon (Alexander), I trust Marshon (Lattimore), Marcus (William), Malcolm (Jenkins), and Duce (C.J. Gardner-Johnson), P Rob (Patrick Robinson), PJ (Williams) , whoever gets on the field. You know, I trust our entire, you know, back seven. When you're talking about the defensive line, you know, I have the utmost confidence in us. I like us versus anybody. So when it comes down to what an offense does, what's the trick play here? What's their bread and butter? It's all about us as a defense and how we're going to attack."

You guys have talked about how good David (Onyemata) is as a player for a long time now, he's already got a career-high in sacks this year? Has he gotten better, even as a pass rusher this year do you think?
"He is a monster in that middle. I keep on using that one just because he has such a presence and a force. I mean, you've seen him go off, plenty of times. It seems like he's putting all the right things together this year. Again, if the quarterback can't roll out left or right, now he has got to step up and you see him making production of it. And at the same time, it's all about trying to be better than you were the game before. And I think David's (Onyemata) done that."

I kind of wanted to ask you about the initiative, the CCC initiative that you guys announced today. Just how did you get involved with that? And what was the sort of the idea behind it?
"Yeah, so the Crescent City Corps, and the God of Love Foundation, just trying to figure out how much more we can do. It goes along with my ideology of, you can always do more, you can always do 1% more, do more than the day before. And there's nothing like what I, you know, any program that I've seen before, what CCC is doing. There's like the third party that's sort of bringing in a training program into the NOPD. And honestly, you know, as much as, as active as I've been this offseason, as much as I'd like to create change, I've been looking for a real idea of how to create change. And I'm hoping this is one of the wavelengths that'll start up, you know, this upcoming class and keep on pushing forward. The idea of positive change, you know, I go back and forth through a lot of different situations in my mind, whether I'm for or against, you know, whatever my status of the day is. But, long term effect is, you know, to create a positive change, you have to look and actually make a change, actually have to, you know, have an action that you can be behind. I feel like the CCC program that they have in place is going to be some sort of, you know, it's going to head towards the positive transformative change that I've been looking for."

Do you attach any significance to being the number one rated defense in the NFL right now? Realizing it's just a step, but it doesn't mean nothing does it?
"How many games do we have left, five? How many games do we have left until the Super Bowl? We don't know. At the end of the season, we'll talk about it. Right now, we're trying to, we're trending upwards. And I like the way our defense is playing. But at the same time, we still have some room to grow. So, we're going to try and continue to push ourselves to be better than we were the game before."