Brian Young enters his eighth season as the club's pass rush specialist. In his 15th season as a valued member of the New Orleans Saints coaching staff, Young has worked with all of the club's front seven position groups after first breaking into the ranks as a coaching assistant in 2009 following the conclusion of a nine-year playing career and 124 games along the defensive line in the National Football League.
Since 2017, New Orleans' 281 sacks rank first in the NFC and second in the league, nine different defensive linemen have produced multi-sack games and the New Orleans defense went an NFL-record 55 regular season and postseason games without allowing a 100-yard rusher between the 2017-20 campaigns. The Saints have ranked in the top ten in sacks five of the last six seasons and have finished in the top five in run defense in four of the last five campaigns.
During the 2022 season, Young helped the Saints produce 48 sacks to finish the year tied for fifth in the NFL. Young coached defensive end Cameron Jordan to a season, where he led the team with 8.5 sacks and reached his seventh consecutive Pro Bowl and eighth overall, as he became the franchise's all-time takedown leader.
Young first joined the Saints coaching staff in 2009 after concluding a nine-year NFL playing career, where he appeared in 124 games and had 22.5 sacks and eight fumble recoveries for the St. Louis Rams (2000-03) and the Saints (2004-08). During his five-year playing tenure with the Black and Gold he served as a valuable member of the Saints interior defensive line rotation, starting 58-of-64 contests.
Young played at Texas-El Paso from 1996-99. He was the Western Athletic Conference Defensive Player of the Year as a senior in 1999, when he had a career-high 121 tackles and eight sacks. The El Paso native graduated with a bachelor's degree in criminal justice. He was a 2016 inductee into the El Paso Athletic Hall of Fame and a 2019 inductee into the UTEP Athletics Hall of Fame.
PLAYING CAREER: Texas El-Paso, 1996-99; St. Louis Rams, 2000-03; New Orleans Saints, 2004-08.
COACHING CAREER: New Orleans Saints, 2009-.
