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Saints 2025 Year in Review: Jordan Howden made little defensive impact
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- Saints 2025 Year in Review: Jordan Howden made little defensive impact
Not many knew exactly what to expect in 2025 from a young New Orleans Saints secondary. It was a unit that came into the regular season without starters Marshon Lattimore , Paulson Adebo , Tyrann Mathieu , and Will Harris from the prior year. Taking their place would be second-year Kool-Aid McKinstry along with rookies Quincy Riley , Jonas Sanker , and free-agent additions Justin Reid and Julian Blackmon .
One of the returning contributors in the secondary was safety Jordan Howden , coming into his third season. A fifth round choice by the Saints in the 2023 NFL draft from the Minnesota Golden Gophers, some even thought that Howden would compete for a starting job. Howden had appeared in over 1,100 defensive snaps in 33 games with 11 starts through his first two seasons. This is what he did in 2025.
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Jordan Howden Year in Review
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Position: Safety
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Age: 25
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Height: 6-feet
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Weight: 209 pounds
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NFL experience: 3 years (with Saints)
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2025 season: 16 games (2 starts)
An uneven preseason killed any chance Howden had of getting significant snaps to start the year. Over the first four weeks, he was inactive for one game and played a total of nine defensive snaps in three others. During the team's first win in Week 5 over the Giants, Howden played 60 snaps and returned a fumble 86 yards for the game-clinching touchdown. It was his first career score and first fumble recovery.
Howden continued to get only intermittent playing time on defense throughout the year. He'd start two contests, playing a total of 122 defensive snaps with 40 in another outing. Aside from those three games and against the Giants, Howden had a total of just 39 defensive reps in his other 12 games. On the year, he had no interceptions or pass breakups with a fumble recovery in 261 defensive snaps. That was only 25% of the Saints total snaps and by far the fewest of his three-year career.
Most of Howden snaps came on special teams (267), but that was a unit that generally struggled. He recorded 29 tackles on defense and special teams combined, with one for loss, also the lowest of his career. Going into 2026, Jordan Howden will be on the final year of his rookie contract. He'll likely need to show that he can make a defensive impact early in training camp just to make the team.
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This article originally appeared on Saints Wire: Saints 2025 Year in Review: Jordan Howden made little defensive impact
