Jahri Evans will enter his fourth season as a coach in the NFL – each working directly with offensive line – and first as the Steelers' assistant offensive line coach in 2026.
Evans first entered the coaching ranks after serving as a 2022 training camp intern for New Orleans and joined the Saints on a full-time basis in 2023 as an offensive assistant, working with the offensive line.
Evans worked extensively with a pair of recent first-round draft picks – Kelvin Banks Jr. (ninth overall selection in the 2025 draft) and Taliese Fuaga (14th overall selection in the 2024 draft).
In his first season in the League, Banks was a consensus All-Rookie selection and was the only Saints offensive lineman to start all 17 regular-season games. He surrendered only 4.0 sacks, which was the fewest for any rookie tackle that started every regular-season game.
Fuaga was an anchor on the Saints offensive line in his '24 rookie campaign, seamlessly moving to left tackle, where he started every game. He was the first New Orleans player to start every game in his rookie year at left tackle since J.T. Taylor in 1978 (Banks Jr. did the same in 2025). In 2025, he moved back to right tackle and started 13 games as a bookend to Banks Jr.
As a player, Evans was drafted by New Orleans in the fourth round (108th overall) of the 2006 NFL Draft and spent the first 11 seasons of his 12-year playing career with the Saints. Overall, he started 183 career regular-season games at right guard for New Orleans (2006-16) and Green Bay (2017). Evans was a six-time Pro Bowl selection, a five-time AP All-Pro and was named to the Pro Football Hall of Fame's 2010's All-Decade Team.
With Evans leading the way up front, New Orleans finished in the top ten in total offense each of the 11 seasons he lined up for the Saints, while the 196 sacks surrendered by the line over the period were the lowest in the NFC and second-lowest in the NFL. After being selected as a consensus All-Rookie in 2006, Evans was a Pro Bowl starter and consensus first-team All-Pro each season from 2009-12.
Evans was elected to the Saints Hall of Fame in 2020, the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in 2022 and the Greater New Orleans Sports Hall of Fame and Saints Ring of Honor in 2024. He has been a semifinalist for the Pro Football Hall of Fame's Class of 2023, and a finalist for the Class of 2024, Class of 2025 and Class of 2026.
A three-year starter at Bloomsburg, which he originally attended on a combined academic/athletic scholarship, Evans anchored the left tackle position and was a finalist for the Division II Gene Upshaw Offensive Player of the Year Award in 2004 and 2005. He earned a bachelor's degree in exercise science. Evans then received an MBA from the University of Miami (Fla.) in Executive Business Administration in 2017.
He and his wife, Takia, have two sons, Atlas and Ayce.
