The New Orleans Saints have found great success this year by taking things one game at a time, preparing well and locking onto their next opponent with laser-focus. It can be tough to not look ahead at the schedule and get distracted, or take some opponents lighter than others. But the Saints have assembled a tight-knit locker room that works hard to keep each other in check, ensuring that the next game is seen as simply “the next game.”

That gets difficult when the next week’s matchup is a heated, long-running NFC South rivalry game with the Atlanta Falcons. Saints defensive end and team captain Cameron Jordan admitted as much after practice on Monday.

“You talk about when you have the Falcons circled on the calendar for the year, it’s the most important game because it’s ‘the next game,’ except it’s not because it’s Atlanta,” Jordan told Katherine Terrell of The Athletic during a media availability session.

Jordan has been involved with rivalries before, of course; his California Golden Bears have been Pac-12 enemies of the Stanford Cardinal for decades. “It’s like the Cal-Stanford game,” Jordan said. “Everybody knows it’s coming and yet it brings a new sense of rivalry every year.”

And few players have enjoyed as much success in a rivalry series as Jordan. He’s logged more sacks against the Falcons than any other team in his nine-year career, dropping Matt Ryan for a sack 15 times in their 16 meetings (two of those sacks were split with Nick Fairley and Tyrunn Walker). This is an opponent Jordan knows well, and enjoys playing against.

He should continue to thrive when the Falcons kick off with the Saints inside the Mercedes-Benz Superdome next Sunday, though he might be remembering the Thanksgiving turkey he won when they played last year, and looking forward to the one that’ll be up for grabs in this season’s rematch.

Or, not. Wouldn’t that count as losing sight of this next game, and looking too far ahead? That’s a luxury the Saints can’t afford in a league where any team can win on any Sunday (the Miami Dolphins proved just that this week). So that Thanksgiving turkey will have to wait.