Central Michigan EDGE Michael Heldman signs as undrafted free agent with New Orleans Saints

Once an under-recruited three-star prospect who took the only FBS scholarship offered to him, Central Michigan EDGE rusher Michael Heldman has earned his call to the pros, signing with the New Orleans Saints as a priority undrafted free agent on Saturday night.

Bo Marchionte of college2pro.com was first to report.

Heldman arrived to Mt. Pleasant in 2021, taking on a redshirt after four games played as a reserve special teamer. From there, he would become one of the most productive defensive linemen in program history, finishing his career with 120 total tackles, 34.5 tackles-for-loss, 19 sacks, five pass break-ups, four forced fumbles, and 29 quarterback hurries over 53 games (42 as a starter.)

Heldman, elected a team captain in 2025, saved his best performance for last, earning first-team all-MAC honors after accumulating 48 tackles (24 solo), 16.5 TFLs, 10.5 sacks, four PBUs, nine QB hurries and a forced fumble in his redshirt senior campaign. Heldman finished 12th in the NCAA in TFLs and 14th in the NCAA in sacks, and was amongst the MAC leaders in both categories alongside fellow Draft prospects Nadame Tucker and Nate Voorhis.

Thanks in part to a coaching staff change which allowed him to play much more wide-open, Heldman doubled his 2024 performance in tackles, TFLs and sacks, while notching four of his five PBUs in 2025 alone.

Heldman leaves CMU as the program's leader in career QB hurries (29), QB hurries in a season (nine) and QB hurries in a game (five), and sits Top-10 in career games played, TFLs, sacks and forced fumbles. He is a lead-by-example type who embraced grind and challenge during his collegiate career, and finished as one of only eight Chippewas to ever claim four placements on the Academic all-MAC team.

Heldman, despite his name, is a particularly excellent technician with his hands, utilizing speed and placement to create leverage and bend around his assignment to win matchups. He has good understanding of when to mix up his moves as well, making him less predictable, and showed decent movement when swimming around blockers the line of scrimmage in the run game.

He has less-than-ideal length despite his height and weight, and sometimes it will lose him a few reps against longer assignments, but he makes up for it with amazing athleticism and just-plain hustle.

The coaching staff will be absolutely beaming at working with such a size/strenth/speed profile, as Heldman both looks the part and plays the part, scoring a 9.90 Relative Athletic Score with numbers that would have placed him first in the vertical jump (40 inches) and shuttle (4.31), second on the bench (29 reps at 225 lbs.) and fifth in the broad jump (10 feet, three inches) at the NFL Combine.

Heldman will bring with him a high motor and tons of in-game experience to New Orleans, which should earn him some camp acclaim early on. Dane Brugler of The Athletic compared Heldman to Nick Bosa in terms of potential in "The Beast", which would be a pretty aspirational ceiling. In the short term, Heldman will be competing for a special teams spot on the 53-man roster with three-down upside in the future.