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New Orleans defensive end Cam Jordan takes perhaps final step in dream fulfillment of always being a Saint

'I don't want to have to go to a different franchise. I want to finish my career here. I want my storyline to be here'

New Orleans Saints defensive end Cameron Jordan was joined by his family at the Ochsner Sports Performance Center as he signed a two-year contract extension on Friday, August 4, 2023.

The only way you wouldn't know defensive end Cameron Jordan wanted to play his entire NFL career with the New Orleans Saints is if you hadn't been paying any attention at all. The Saints have – to that, and to the fact that the 13-year veteran has become one of the best players and ambassadors in franchise history.

On Friday, Jordan, the three-time All-Pro, eight-time Pro Bowler and franchise all-time leader with 115.5 sacks, and the team that drafted him in the first round in 2011, took perhaps the final step toward their career-long commitment when Jordan signed a two-year extension that will carry him to the 15-year playing career he spoke of having last week.

"I've been truly honored and blessed to enter a market like New Orleans, to enter everything that you think you want as a football player, coming up as a man, coming up as a kid with dreams of playing in the NFL," said Jordan, who was accompanied by his wife, Nikki, their four children and his father, Steve.

"To sit here and be embraced by the city of New Orleans, to be able to start so many initiatives and everything that I've been able to do in this city, being empowered not only by the Saints' staff, just a phenomenal staff from Day 1," he said. "It has been such a phenomenal and amazing experience that I couldn't see myself being anything but Black and Gold."

The one-team idea was a seed planted as Jordan watched his father play his entire 13-year career with the Vikings. Steve Jordan, a six-time Pro Bowler, finished his career with 498 receptions for 6,307 yards and 28 touchdowns.

"Being born in Minnesota, you see Pops working, his work ethic, his talents – going to six Pro Bowls over a 13-year career – you don't even put that in a quantifiable position of yourself," Cam Jordan said. "You just want to make the NFL.

"Think about it – the NFL average (career length) when I got to the league was like 2.7 years. Now, it's sitting at 2.98. Position-wise, I guess it goes up a little bit, and it goes up a little beyond three years. The NFL stands for Not For Long for a reason. And to have the exclusive membership of being with a team for 10 years, it's been a blessing.

"I'm elated just to be wanted, I'm elated to be here. Probably the first time ever, I went home and on the contract extension offer, I asked Nikki, I was like, 'Hey, you got any pushback about this? Is there any line we're drawing in the sand?' And she was like, 'We're riding till the wheels fall off.'

"I don't want to have to go to a different franchise. I want to finish my career here. I want my storyline to be here. I would love that my story has been drafted here, kept here, been here. The story is to let it unfold, finish and be here. I can't wait to give everything that I've been giving to the Saints, to the city, to the community, to my family, to continue doing so for the foreseeable future."

Jordan, who has more Pro Bowl appearances than any defensive player in Saints' history, has started 191 of the 192 games he has played. He only has missed two games in his career – one in 2021 due to Covid protocols and one last season due to an eye injury.

He has had six seasons of 10-plus sacks, 11 seasons of at least 7.5 sacks and has totaled 15 forced fumbles, 10 fumble recoveries, two interceptions (one for a touchdown), 60 passes defensed, 150 tackles for loss and 219 quarterback hits.

"I've been blessed," he said. "In my mind, if you want to know the truth, when I got drafted I was like, alright, I've got to make a Pro Bowl. You don't want to be the son who goes to the league right after his Dad and not make a Pro Bowl. After that, it has been all lagniappe.

"I know one mode, and that's to go as hard as I can. From the time I was born to now it's been the same idea – wake up, give everything you've got, fall asleep by 9. I don't make it past that.

"It's just this innate ability to wake up and want to go get it, and that's what I still wake up to to this day. So when it comes to what I want to do, what we want to do, what I've always been as a Saint, I'm going to continue doing so until I can't do it anymore."

The continuation, and likely conclusion, will come in New Orleans with the Saints.

"Every agent is supposed to say my client wants to be here forever," Jordan said. "But to hear that same statement from your GM (Mickey Loomis) reverberate through the building, and the legends in the building – there's nobody that you would rather be around. So when everything makes sense, why fight against it?"

New Orleans Saints defensive end Cameron Jordan is set to play in his 200th career game (regular season and postseason) on Sunday, Dec. 18, 2022. Take a look back at all 200 games of Cam Jordan in uniform for the Saints and his stat line for each game.

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