Admittedly, Paulson Adebo wasn’t bashful when he set foot inside the New Orleans Saints’ locker room.

He knew his talent level and knew he was ready for the NFL, so the third-round draft pick likely was the least surprised person on Earth that he started all 17 games at cornerback last season as a rookie, and finished with three interceptions, eight passes defensed and 66 tackles.

“I think the confidence comes with putting in the work, seeing it on tape, seeing it translate,” Adebo said. “So naturally the more you do, the more experience you get, the confidence comes more and more. But I came in confident, I’m still confident.”

Thus, it’s a reasonable presumption that the second-year pro is operating with an even higher sense of belonging this year in training camp, after emerging as a viable compliment to New Orleans’ other cornerback, Pro Bowler Marshon Lattimore.

“He just has a better understanding of what we’re doing defensively,” Coach Dennis Allen said. “There’s a maturity about that player which was there last year, but maybe a little more confidence in what we’re doing knowing that, I belong.”

“Playing 17 games, I started every game, so a lot of experience,” Adebo said. “There are guys that have played maybe two, three years in the league and don’t have that much experience. Having those live, in-game reps, knowing what it feels like, that really helps.”

What helps, too, is that New Orleans’ aggressive defense leans in to Adebo’s preferred style of play. Thursday’s training camp practice was highlighted by a couple of Adebo pass breakups, including a stretch-out PBU against receiver Marquez Callaway on the right sideline.

“When a receiver comes down and you’re always challenging him, always challenging, that does numbers throughout the duration of a game,” Adebo said. “As a secondary we just want to have that mentality of coming down and challenging guys every rep. If you catch the ball on me, it’s going to be hard. We’re not trying to give anybody easy releases or anything like that, just trying to be competitive on every play.

“We’re gonna be nasty, we’re gonna bump and run, we’re going up there challenging receivers. We want people to know it’s not going to be easy.”

And Adebo wants to make sure that his level of play is exhibited consistently.

“I felt like last year was kind of flashes here and there, but just trying to put a whole year together and really be a complete player,” he said.

The more complete he is – the more complete the Saints’ secondary is – the better the defense overall will be.

“We’ve got Bradley Roby, Chauncey (Gardner-Johnson), Latt (Lattimore), Marcus Maye, P.J. Williams, Alontae Taylor – top down, everybody can perform so naturally that makes you want to push a little harder. We kind of just bring each other up.

“Naturally, we push each other. We all want to be kind of the same player. Throughout the duration of a season you’re going to need three, four, five cornerbacks to step up. If there’s no drop off between two, three, four or five, that’s kind of what we want to have, everybody being at the tip-top of their game.”