In the offseason, New Orleans Saints position coaches put together plans of attack for individual players.
“We dive into what they can do better, but not only that, not only identifying a problem, but also identifying the solution,” first-year linebackers coach Michael Hodges explained to Thursday. “DA (Dennis Allen) charges us with that responsibility after the season.”
Hodges put these plans together for the Saints linebackers before New Orleans promoted Michael Wilhoite and when the new defensive assistant first examined the plans he was surprised at which one was the most comprehensive.
“I sent them to him to look over and he's like, ‘why are there more on Demario (Davis) than anybody else?’” Hodges said.
Davis is coming off an All-Pro season that saw him log 111 tackles, four sacks and an interception along with a career-high 12 pass breakups. But the linebacker and his coaches think he could be poised for an even better season.
“There's some things in coverage, there's some things in pass rush, there's some things in run fits that if I can get him just a little bit better at those things, well all of a sudden he's a perennial pro player,” Hodges said.
Hodges said that Davis led the charge in calling for improvement.
“I never imagined being around a guy who is an all-pro player, had the season he had last year and he calls me and he says, ‘What can I do better?’” Hodges said. “He calls me during the bye week and he says, ‘What can I do better?’
“So that's really why I see that there's more upside for him. And I do think that we're going to see even a better player than we saw last year.”
Hodges said Davis is very driven to improve and describes the veteran as an intentional learner.
“The only other person I've seen approach it differently, from my short career, is Drew (Brees) and that's from afar,” he said. “So Drew's on another level I think, but what he does is some really special things.”