If he ever needed someone to accompany him down a dark alley, New Orleans Saints guard Lucas Patrick said his pick would be teammate Trevor Penning.
The offensive lineman, who joined the Saints in May, hasn't been around Penning long. But over the last few months, Patrick has watched how the former first rounder embraced a position change by moving from left to right tackle. He's seen how Penning has enjoyed coming to work every day, and how he's been "dependable" through it all.
"I don't think everybody understands how truly mentally tough he is," Patrick said.
Patrick said that when players play as physically as Penning does, opposing teams tend to try and "go after a guy like that," thinking they can get the better of him. And for the first two years of Penning's career, that had been the case. It led to disastrous results, leading the Saints to bench Penning in 2023.
Now in Penning's third season, teams are still trying to go after the tackle - only to find out they aren't having the same sort of success as before. Through two games, according to Pro Football Focus, Penning has allowed just two pressures -- eight fewer than he did in the same span to start last year. He has yet to give up a sack, after allowing four in five starts in 2023.
Penning has been a vital part to an offensive line that has performed much better than expected. With three new starters, including Penning at right tackle, the Saints rank ninth in ESPN's pass block win rate metric and second in the company's run block win rate metric.
"I definitely feel a lot more comfortable, more calmed down out there," Penning said. "Ready to just play ball and have fun doing it."
Penning's temperament, a key issue throughout his first two seasons, can still get the better of him at times. In Sunday's game, Penning was hit with an unnecessary roughness penalty for getting into it with a Cowboys lineman after Blake Grupe's extra point. Coach Dennis Allen was unhappy, later noting the penalty set up Dallas' longest kick return of the afternoon. Penning, too, said he "has to be smarter."
"After I did it, I was like, 'Why did I just do that? That was stupid,'" Penning said.
But the Saints have seen growth in Penning's game. Allen said the offensive lineman has become the kind of aggressive run blocker the Saints imagined he could be when they drafted him 19th overall out of Northern Iowa in 2022. And as a pass blocker, Allen said Penning is "getting better." He added he thinks Penning is getting more confident by the game.
That Penning has started this season like this comes as a surprise. It was only a month ago the Saints flirted with replacing Penning in the starting lineup. After two uneven preseason games from the tackle, the Saints returned home from training camp in California to experiment with alternating reps between Penning and veteran Oli Udoh.
Offensive line coach John Benton admitted recently he was worried about Penning's confidence when he had a rocky start to the preseason. But Benton told Penning that if he saw improvement every day, they'd be just fine. And in practice, Benton saw a player willing to work. Penning kept his starting job.
"You're coaching there every day and you just saw progress," Benton said. "You continue to see progress. He's so athletically gifted that it's not an issue of, 'Can he do it?' ... He just really hadn't had time on task, with the injury and what not."
Penning's role was limited with the Saints over his first two years. As a rookie, Penning missed the first 11 games when a torn ligament in his foot kept him out until November. Then, at the end of that season, he fractured his foot, which prevented him from getting a full workload that offseason. The Saints threw him into the fire anyway, only to bench him last October.
The Saints trust Penning now. Benton pointed out how in New Orleans' opener against the Carolina Panthers, Penning had four reps on third down in which the team didn't give him any help at all. Then against the Cowboys, Penning matched up against stars Micah Parsons and DeMarcus Lawrence.
Penning's ceiling is "only growing," Patrick said.
"You can't be mentally tough if you're not willing to go as hard as he is every play and falter in any of that," Patrick said.