The newest member of the Saints’ linebacker group is already very familiar with the team’s position coach.
New Orleans announced the signing of Jackson Sirmon to their 53-man roster on Wednesday. Sirmon’s father Peter is the team’s linebackers coach and he was also his son’s coach when the younger Sirmon was playing at Cal in college.
Sirmon signed with the Jets after going undrafted in 2024 and spent the season on the practice squad. He appeared in one game last season and had one tackle on special teams.
The Saints waived cornerback Jeremiah McClendon to create space for Sirmon on the roster. McClendon signed after going undrafted last month.
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The Texans are adding some depth at receiver.
Houston is signing Jha’Quan Jackson, according to Aaron Wilson of KPRC Houston.
Jackson, 26, was a Titans sixth-round pick in 2024. He appeared in 12 games as a rookie, returning 28 punts, averaging 7.7 yards. He also returned 16 kicks, averaging 25.8 yards.
Tennessee waived him last August as a part of their roster cuts to 53 players.
Since then, he’s spent time with the Saints and the St. Louis Battlehawks of the UFL.
With the No. 8 overall pick of this year’s draft, the Saints added a player who should be able to make a major impact on their offense in receiver Jordyn Tyson.
A two-time, first-team All-Big 12 honoree, Tyson’s skillset and tape have been impressive to New Orleans quarterback Tyler Shough.
“I think his body control and his separation is what stands out to me,” Shough said on Monday, via NewOrleans.football. “I think he’s an elite separator and also, his hands have been really exciting to see kind of close up now. He’s so sure-handed. He’s got this great kind of feel. He’s very friendly to the quarterback, I would say. And, obviously, his big-play ability is what shows up all over tape.
“So, we’re still very early on in the process, and, I think, more than anything, just getting on the same page with the playbook. He’s doing a really good job of that. I think he’s really smart. So, we’re excited to keep going with him.”
Though he missed a few games with a hamstring injury last year, Tyson was still a first-team All-Big 12 honoree for the second consecutive season. He caught 61 passes for 711 yards with eight TDs in 2025.
The Saints selected wide receiver Jordyn Tyson with the eighth overall pick last month. Tyson isn’t a future replacement for Chris Olave. Instead, the Saints want to build their passing attack around Olave and Tyson.
Olave, though, is set to become a free agent after this season.
General Manager Mickey Loomis wants to get a deal done, but the sides have no timetable on a long-term extension.
“Obviously, we’d love to have something done sooner than later, and I’m sure Chris would as well, but we’re not there yet,” Loomis said Monday, via Katherine Terrell of ESPN.
Olave, who turns 26 next month, is under contract for this season at $15.49 million under his fifth-year option.
He has three 1,000-yard seasons in his four seasons, catching 291 passes for 3,728 yards and 19 touchdowns.
Saints General Manager Mickey Loomis gave an update on where things stand with running back Alvin Kamara when he spoke to reporters on Monday and he also touched on the status of a couple of longtime members of the team who remain unsigned for the 2026 season.
Defensive end Cam Jordan has talked about leaving the door open to returning to New Orleans for his 16th season and Loomis said the team is also open to a return. He said, via multiple reporters, that there is a contract offer on the table for Jordan.
Jordan hasn’t signed that contract, obviously, and that suggests he’s looking for something more from the Saints or someone else before making any commitment for the coming season.
While Jordan could be back, it doesn’t look like tight end Taysom Hill will be back in a Saints uniform. Loomis said that there’s no offer out to him and Hill’s emotional words after the final 2025 home game may have been his final ones as a member of the team.
Running back Alvin Kamara sounds like he wants to be with the Saints for the 2026 season, but it remains less than a sure thing that is how all will play out in New Orleans.
Kamara is under contract, but the signing of Travis Etienne in free agency and a contract tweak that makes it easier to part ways with him after June 1 have clouded the veteran’s future with the team. General Manager Mickey Loomis and head coach Kellen Moore have consistently stopped short of making any commitment to Kamara this offseason beyond saying that he’s currently on the roster.
Loomis addressed Kamara’s status again on Monday and alluded to a pay cut being part of the path to Kamara staying put for another season.
“We’re just trying to see how he’s gonna fit on our roster,” Loomis said, via Luke Johnson of the New Orleans Times-Picayune. “Obviously there’s a resource management element. We’ll get to that over the next week or two.”
Kamara has spent all nine of his NFL seasons with the Saints and it looks like we’ll know sometime next month if he’ll make it a decade.
One of the most memorable games in Monday Night Football History took place in Week Three of the 2006 season, when the Saints beat the Falcons in their return to New Orleans for the first time since Hurricane Katrina. Twenty years later, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell wanted a Falcons-Saints Monday night game in New Orleans on the 2026 schedule.
NFL VP of broadcasting planning Mike North says the 2026 schedule has a Week Four Monday night game between the Falcons and Saints at the Superdome because Goodell himself requested that it happen around the time of the 20th anniversary.
“It’s really to the Commissioner’s credit, it was, ‘We’re gonna play Falcons at Saints on Monday night this year, fit it in in that kind of three-week window.’ So, it wasn’t a requirement it had to land in a special week, but it was a requirement, straight from the boss, that it landed on our schedule,” North said.
Some in New Orleans wanted the 2026 game played in Week Three, as the 2006 game was, but North said playing the game in Week Four proved to be a better fit for the NFL’s overall schedule.
“Relative to the exact date of the anniversary, honestly, we figured if we were within a couple of weeks, we were in good shape,” North said. “Fans remember that moment, the electricity, the excitement. If we were a week early, or closer to the day, or a week later, weren’t gonna throw away our best schedule just by being off a couple days. Plus, as you know, there’s a lot of events going on in that region. I don’t have the stadium availability off the top of my head, but relative to the Dome itself, the arena across the street, there’s concerts, there’s basketball games, there’s other things going on at times. It wasn’t a, ‘This game has to be in this week.’”
The 2006 game, remembered most for Steve Gleason’s blocked punt that was recovered by Curtis Deloatch for the Saints’ first touchdown, was a classic. The 2026 game will be an opportunity for New Orleans to celebrate that great moment in Saints history.
We don’t know if Fernando Mendoza will be starting at quarterback for the Raiders in Week 1 of the regular season, but we do know who the Raiders will be playing in the first overall pick’s potential debut.
The NFL’s schedule reveal on Thursday night shows that the Raiders will host the Dolphins at 4:25 p.m. ET on Sunday, September 13. The game will be on Fox.
Mendoza will have to get the nod over Kirk Cousins in order to start for the Raiders. Offseason addition Malik Willis is expected to make his first appearance for the Dolphins. Both teams will definitely have head coaches making their offseason debut as Las Vegas hired Klint Kubiak in February and Miami hired Jeff Hafley in January.
Sunday will also feature a pair of divisional games in the late afternoon window. The Packers will visit the Vikings while the Commanders will be in Philadelphia to renew their acquaintance with the Eagles. The NFC North matchup will be on CBS while the NFC East clash will be broadcast by Fox.
The other late game on Sunday afternoon will see the Cardinals visiting the Chargers on CBS. Arizona could have Jacoby Brissett, Gardner Minshew or rookie Carson Beck at quarterback for that contest.
The 1 p.m. ET games will send the Bills to Houston for a date with the Texans while the Browns go on the road against the Jaguars. The Colts will host the Ravens, the Saints will visit the Lions, the Buccaneers will travel to Cincinnati for Dexter Lawrence’s first game as a Bengal, and the Steelers will kick off the Mike McCarthy era — with or without Aaron Rodgers — at home against the Falcons.
Previous reports revealed that the Jets will be in Tennessee and that the Bears will head to Charlotte to face the Panthers. The Jets-Titans game will be on CBS along with the Bills-Texans, Ravens-Colts and Browns-Jaguars games. All the other 1 p.m. games will be on Fox.
The entire Week 1 slate will kick off on Wednesday, September 9 with a Patriots-Seahawks Super Bowl rematch in Seattle on NBC. Thursday will bring a Netflix game between the 49ers and Rams in the NFL’s first game in Melbourne and Sunday night will find the Cowboys at MetLife Stadium to meet the Giants on NBC’s Sunday Night Football. Those games were all announced ahead of Thursday’s full schedule reveal, which was also the case for the ESPN Monday night game between the Broncos and Chiefs in Kansas City.
As more of the 2026 schedule gets revealed before the full unveiling at 8 p.m. ET, we now know another Week 1 matchup between a pair of NFC teams.
Per Nick Underhill of NewOrleans.football, the Saints and Lions will play each other in Detroit to open the season.
Detroit’s Week 2 opponent had already been revealed, as the club will be on the road to face Buffalo as the Bills open Highmark Stadium on Thursday Night Football.
The exact time of the Week 1 contest between the Saints and Lions has not yet been disclosed.
Detroit and New Orleans last faced one another in 2023, with the Lions coming away with a 33-28 victory at the Superdome. Quarterback Jared Goff threw for 213 yards with a pair of touchdowns in that game.
With the Lions missing the postseason at 9-8 in 2025 and the Saints finishing the season 6-11 in Kellen Moore’s first year as head coach, this Week 1 contest is a sneaky intriguing matchup between a pair of 2026 postseason hopefuls.
All of the international matchups for the 2026 NFL season were announced on Wednesday morning.
We already knew the first two games on the schedule. The 49ers and Rams will meet in the NFL’s first-ever game in Melbourne, Australia in Week 1 while the Ravens and Cowboys will head to Brazil to play a game in Rio in Week 3.
There will be three straight weeks of games in London kicking off the next week. The Colts will face the Commanders at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in Week 4 and the Eagles and Jaguars will square off in the same place the next week. The Jaguars will stay in London to take on the Texans at Wembley Stadium in Week 6.
From there, it will be on to Paris for the first time in league history. The Steelers will battle the Saints at Stade de France in Week 7.
The Bengals-Falcons matchup in Madrid in Week 9 was announced earlier this week and it will be followed by a Patriots-Lions clash at Allianz Arena in Munich the next weekend. The NFL’s return to Mexico City will come in Week 11 when the Vikings and the 49ers square off on Sunday Night Football.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has talked about his desire to see the league play international games each week and the NFL is moving closer to that goal in 2026.
