METAIRIE, La. – Freshly-drafted New Orleans Saints defensive end Isaiah Foskey wants to be the next Cameron Jordan.

But playing alongside him would be OK too.

Jordan, who set the Saints sack record in January, is the face of the defense at the moment. As Saints coach Dennis Allen pointed out, he’s also not a bad player to shadow either.

“I guess if you’re going to try to learn from somebody, that would be a good one to learn from,” Allen said.

It’s no wonder the Saints' second-round pick is eager to meet the player he calls a “Hall of Famer type of guy.”

They already have the record-setting mentality in common, with Foskey holding Notre Dame’s record of 26.5 career sacks.

“They’ve been playing football for a little while, so we felt like he was a pretty good player for us,” Allen said with a smile after the draft.

But Foskey, who was selected with the 40th pick last week, has more ahead than just a learning opportunity. He and defensive tackle Bryan Bresee, the Saints first-round pick, have the ability to set their marks on a revamped defensive line.

“I wanted to go to a team that’s defensive, d-line pretty much, oriented,” Foskey said. “That first pick, Bryan Bresee, me and him are going to be dominating the front seven, so that’s great.”

The prospect of being a Saint appealed to Foskey from the beginning. He and the coaches got to know each other in the spring through a combination of video chats, film study, in-person visits at the NFL scouting combine, Notre Dame’s Pro Day and the Senior Bowl.

As the process unfolded, Foskey latched on to the prospect of being a Saint.

“I fell in love with them, love the coaches, I talked to them a lot. Just the vibe of the whole team, New Orleans,” Foskey said. “I kept telling everybody, this is who I want to go to.”

He likely also fell in love with the blank slate on the depth chart. Outside of Jordan, his biggest competitors are 2021 first-round pick Payton Turner (13 career games, 3 sacks) and Carl Granderson (54 career games, 14.5 sacks).

With the way the Saints rotate their rushers, there are prime opportunities for everyone.

Bresee, 21, and Foskey, 22 are the newest and youngest faces of a room that just went through an overhaul. Defensive tackles David Onyemata, Shy Tuttle and Kentavius Street have been replaced with free agent additions Khalen Saunders and Nathan Shepherd.

Marcus Davenport, who the Saints heavily invested in during the first round of the 2018 draft, signed with the Minnesota Vikings after five seasons and 21.5 sacks in New Orleans. The Saints also have a new defensive coordinator and new defensive line coach.

Jordan, 33, is the only player remaining in the room over the age of 30, and the departures of his longtime teammates have been bittersweet for him.

He joked before the draft that Onyemata, who signed with the Atlanta Falcons, was one of the last linemen left in the locker room that was close to his age.

But as sad as he’s been to see his teammates go, he’s been eager about the draft all offseason, tweeting out mock draft selections and emphasizing the Saints’ need for a defensive tackle.

“No, that’s exciting. No such thing as a mass exodus for me,” Jordan told ESPN prior to the draft.

He added: “I think that when you have guys that you played with, and you see them get paid, I’m excited for them, like, ‘Hey Shy, way to make your money,’ or ‘Hey David, how could you go to the dark side? You know, why would you go to the losing side?' … You think about guys going to different teams, and you understand it’s part of the game.”

In some ways, Jordan is a relic of the Saints past. When he was selected in the first round of the 2011 draft at 6-foot-4, he was one of the tallest players on the defensive line. Defensive tackle Turk McBride, who was signed as a free agent in 2011, was the only other lineman of that height.

Now, he’s one of the shortest.

The Saints have been constantly evolving their prototypes since then, pushing to get bigger and taller in front. Foskey (6-5) and Bresee (6-5) align with that trend.

“Not a lot of big men walking the earth right now that have that type of athleticism. You know what I mean? There’s just not very many of them,” Allen said. “They’re a top priority for us. It’s a big man’s game. I’ve said that all along, we like size, length, athleticism, and the prototypes that we talk about are a big part of what we do. I think we philosophically believe that the ability to control the line of scrimmage is important in winning football games. So yeah, it’s been a point of emphasis for us.”

But Jordan’s success comes down to more than simple height or physical attributes, and Foskey, who picked up boxing as one of many ways to hone and study his pass-rushing technique, knows that. It’s something he and Al Washington, his defensive line coach at Notre Dame, have discussed.

“You think about Cam Jordan, he’s arguably one of the best defensive linemen in the game,” Washington said. “I think what makes Cam unique is not so much the physical, it’s the way he views the game, his intelligence. I think he makes great decisions, and he has years of experience to look to. For Isaiah, him coming in Day 1, he should be a sponge to a guy like that because really it’s almost like a passing of a torch.

“I know Cam is not done, but I think it really will help a player like Isaiah, who is intuitive and passionate about the game. I think he absolutely will take advantage of that and being in that locker room.”

That’s something Foskey is absolutely willing to do.

“I can learn from him, be a sponge and soak it all in, but compete at the same level as him, try to go on the other side of him, or be him.” Foskey said. “That was like the biggest thing I wanted to do, be underneath a vet, be with a vet. And New Orleans was a great thing, you had Cam Jordan right there.”