New Orleans Saints’ defender named NFC Unsung Hero

In an article published by NFL.com, they named one “Unsung Hero” on every NFC team. For the Saints, it was this star defensive end.

The New Orleans Saints offense might have been having their struggles over the course of this season, but the defense was downright awful for a few performances, especially against the Raiders and Packers — eventually, they picked it up later in the season.

Inside of that average defense has been one special player that has gone under the radar instead of in the spotlight. When you mention the Saints and edge rusher in the same sentence, everyone automatically thinks of Cameron Jordan — the Saints long-time rusher.

Even in recent years, New Orleans has developed a tandem of Cameron Jordan and Marcus Davenport. They are two that have become one of the most dangerous pairs of defensive ends in the entire league and put offenses on the watch.

While everyone in past years was talking about the two of them, defensive end Trey Hendrickson had the best season this year of any defensive lineman on the black and gold and even was comparable to the top NFL DEs.

He is leading the team in all the line categories of recognition.

The two major categories that you would look at for a lineman is sacks and tackles for a loss. In comparison to Hendrickson and those categories, he finished on top of both. He ended the season with 13.5 sacks and 13.5 tackles for a loss.

Those numbers put Hendrickson in the same category as Browns, Myles Garrett; Steelers, T.J. Watt; and Rams, Aaron Donald. Hendrickson tied Donald for the second-most sacks in the NFL. That is the reason that Hendrickson is the Unsung Hero of the New Orleans Saints.

According to Nick Shook of NFL.com, “Set to become an unrestricted free agent in March, he spent a good amount of the season near or atop the league leaderboard in sacks (he finished tied for second with 13.5), registered the sixth-most QB pressures in the NFL with 53, seventh-most disruptions (57) and forced two turnovers via pressure.”

Hendrickson thrived alongside Jordan, and his long-term outlook shows a ceiling that might not have even been hit yet.