New Orleans Saints franchise icon Cam Jordan has seven games with three-plus sacks in his NFL career. On Nov. 28, 2019, Jordan posted a career-best four sacks in a 26-18 win over the Atlanta Falcons. And he did it all while he was sick as a dog.
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Cam recently joined Julian Edelman to discuss his dominant Thanksgiving performance on the Games with Names podcast. The contest, aptly labeled “The Cam Jordan Flu Game”, helped the Saints capture the NFC South title. Cam, as mentioned, contributed more than his fair share despite being under the weather. He described why he played through his pain to Edelman.
“I felt like sh*t… I didn’t recall some plays cause I was like wheezing for breath. This is my ‘Flu Game”… in the moments leading up to this game, I was like, ‘come on. Michael Jordan did it, Cam Jordan can do it’… nobody feels amazing 100% of the time.”
Cam then elaborated on what he was going through during the game. Needless to say, it wasn’t pretty.
“That game sticks out in my mind. I was like, ‘bro, I can’t breathe.’ I was shooting the inhaler on the sidelines, just trying to like catch a breath. And my coach was like, ‘yo, you good?’ And I’m like, ‘Hell yeah I’m good!’ Then I’d turn to the sidelines… big, stuffy nose, [stuff] dripping. I was like, ‘I look disgusting.'”
Three of Cam’s sacks came in the fourth quarter of the rivalry battle. Two of them occurred on Atlanta’s final offensive possession, which followed an onside kick recovery. Had the Falcons scored a touchdown, they could have gotten the ensuing two-point conversion to tie the game. Instead, Cam took matters into his own hands and sealed the win.
Cam Jordan: “This isn’t basketball”
Michael Jordan’s “Flu Game” came in the 1997 NBA Finals. In Game 5 of the iconic series, Jordan fought through what The Last Dance documentary revealed to be food poisoning to carry his Chicago Bulls to a 90-88 victory. The triumph gave the Bulls a 3-2 edge in the championship matchup. Two days later, they’d capture the fifth championship of their dynasty.
Modern NBA players, for better or worse, aren’t perceived to be nearly as tough as Michael Jordan was that day. Load management is a chastised but common practice. Cam Jordan expressed to Edelman that NFL players can’t afford to have that approach because their league plays way fewer games (17) than the NBA (82).
“If I [was] like, ‘yeah Coach, I’ve got the flu.’ [He’d say], ‘so you’re good, right?’ [I’d say], ‘yeah, I’m good.’ This isn’t basketball… ‘you don’t have to play all the games.’ No… my teammates depend on me for all 17 of these mugs, and I want to be there each and every time.”
Jordan embodies the “Iron Man” mentality. He has played 226 of a possible 228 games in his career. The first absence – Week 14, 2021 against the New York Jets – was due to a positive COVID-19 test. And if he had his way, he wouldn’t have missed Week 11, 2022 versus the Los Angeles Rams. He tried playing through a “nearly swollen shut” eye.
Jordan, a 14-year veteran, turns 36 in July. He’s under contract with the Saints through the 2025 campaign.
