They’ve also added a self-confessed Pokemon fan.
“I think I bring a lot of emotions with me,” Williams said. “I think I bring a lot of just 100 percent love and courage and I’m just a warrior and just being myself. I don’t do anything that I feel isn’t what teams do or try to get off the ground team to be apart .
“I want to be part of the team, whatever I can do, like block, run, return or punt return. Whatever they ask of me, I’m in. I’m just here to give everything I can, give all my talents, keep learning how to get better because you can never stop improving.”
Saunders also believes he has more to offer than is yet to be as effective as he can be for an NFL team. It gives the interior an impressive physical presence – 6 feet, 325 pounds.
In his first four seasons, he started five of the 38 games he played and had 4.5 sacks (3.5 last season) and 81 tackles (48 last year). But from the moment he learned the Saints were interested, he knew his goal.
“I didn’t even know at the time (that David Onyemata and Shy Tuttle, two defensive tackles from last year’s team, were signed elsewhere),” Saunders said. “Honestly, I told my agent to look for the best opportunity. That’s a word you’ll hear me say a lot, it’s opportunity. Because I feel like that’s one of those things that people overlook.
“I’m all about my chance and what I can do with it. It wasn’t like I got calls from all these different teams and I was like, ‘I want to go with them.’ The Saints contacted my agents. They said, ‘We want him, we want to give him a chance.’ Once you heard that, I figured I didn’t need to hear anything else.
“The biggest thing about me is getting an opportunity and wanting to feel wanted and feeling like you’re going to get valuable time and valuable experience there. That was the tone of the jump as soon as I started speaking her and as soon as my agent started talking to me about here. I thought I was eager to do it. You get the opportunity, you get the chances. Why shouldn’t I grab them?
New Orleans also offered Saunders a strong selling point: Two of his former Kansas City Chiefs teammates — Safeties bully Mathieu and defensive lineman Tanoh Kpassagnon — are on the list. Most notably, Mathieu had an impact on Saunders, who was drafted by the Chiefs in 2019 as Mathieu entered his seventh season.
Saunders said he had dinner with Mathieu on Thursday.
“I’m delighted to be back with him,” Saunders said. “He’s a really predominant figure in my career. I came as a beginner and he was there. He was a vet, he was a vocal leader, so I’ll never forget that. I’m glad to be with him again.
“He knows the guy I am, he knows my heart, he knows what kind of things I want to do and what kind of things I like to put in a room. So hopefully I can try to help, guide and help some victories. That’s all we want to do here.”
Williams is aiming no less with the Saints.
“I just like the team,” he said. “It kind of came out of nowhere, but at the same time I just love how they took an interest in me. It showed that they wanted me to be here.
“I’m just proud to be part of a great team like this, with a lot of vets, a team with a lot of players who know what playoffs are. I’m just grateful to be here and to be part of a team that already knows how to win and what to do.”
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