Here's a good listen for your lunch break. New Orleans Saints Hall of Fame right guard and assistant offensive line coach Jahri Evans sat down for a lengthy interview on the NFL Players: Second Acts Podcast, hosted by his old teammate and fraternity brother Roman Harper and legendary defensive back Charles "Peanut" Tillman. Their conversation spanned a range of topics about Evans' playing career, his journey as a coach, and life outside of football, but one of his most fascinating responses came when asked to name the opponents who gave him the most trouble throughout his 12-year career.
"Oh man, I get this one a lot," Evans groaned, remembering old battles in the trenches. "You've got different types of D-linemen, right? I would say Gerald McCoy was probably the best get-off. He'd be a wide-four technique just streaming up the field. And then you've got guys like Ndamukong Suh, who just wants to muscle you, he's not really flipping his hips. I never really struggled against those kind of guys. But then you've got, like, Haloti Ngata who's just a massive human being. He's just about to take five hard steps as fast and hard as he can and try to put me through the wall."
Evans pointed to Ngata specifically as a tough matchup -- someone who's bigger and stronger than you, and who doesn't relent from one down to the next. He remembered one sequence where the Saints were running a two-minute drill in the Superdome with Drew Brees working to go into halftime with a lead. And Ngata was in Evans' face the entire drive. He had to adjust his pass set to such a low point to try and get leverage on Ngata that it felt more like he was setting up to block for a running play: "I had to do that for a minute and 20 seconds, for the whole two-minute drive."
Tap in to the full interview for a really insightful look to life as a blocker in the NFL. Evans shared his experiences in a lot of unique situations, like working to remember Sean Payton's lengthy play calls to taking a congratulatory phone call from his agent on being named a finalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame for a second time. We might be biased, but having another Saints great co-hosting the interview puts it over the top.
The @Saints put @J_7TRE_E in their Hall of Fame because of how well he protected @DrewBrees. But who gave him his toughest test?
— NFL Legacy (@NFLLegacy) April 2, 2025
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This article originally appeared on Saints Wire: Jahri Evans names Haloti Ngata, Gerald McCoy among toughest rivals
