As you have dealt with your cervical neck issues over the past decade, how many weeks would you say that you could have been an effective NFL starter capable of contributing enough on pass rushing downs in excess of the base contribution of Cameron Jordan or Carl Granderson in order to provide $13 million per season of added value?

While the Saints doctors and gambling GM may know more than we do, they also knew more than we did about Thomas, Penning, Turner, Davenport, Moreau, DeShaun Watson, and many players going back to Byrd and Fairley, and their knowledge has not translated into good decisions on injured players since the 2006 offseason. There are also 31 other teams in the NFL who passed on Young or offered less, and based on track records most of them know more about avoiding injured players than the Saints.

If the procedure was minimally invasive, why are they saying Young will miss part of training camp and making no guarantees about the start of the season? This is not a guy who recovered fast from an ACL, missing the better part of 2 years.

If you want to play the inside knowledge card, no other team knows as much as we do about Cameron Jordan's ankle, how much it contributed to his decline in 2023, how much of his decline was more a factor of age, and how well his ankle is recovering to expect a boost or further drop in production in 2024. We don't know what they know, but we do know that their largest expenditure in free agency so far has been a pass rushing DE that recorded a similar or lesser sack total in 2023 than what Jordan has recorded when fully healthy, and that they saw this as the most important addition to make in free agency despite that player having serious enough injury concerns of his own to warrant special contract language. It would be reasonable to infer that the addition of Young makes the most sense if the prognosis on Jordan's contribution to the pass rush in 2024 is poor and the team believes Jordan's decline in 2023 was real and permanent not the PR line about an ankle to cover for the bad contract. If Jordan was about to come back to form in 2024 with 8-10 sacks, no way is Young and his 7.5 sacks and a neck surgery our top priority in free agency.

I am glad we have guarantees against injury. Hopefully they are good guarantees.