The New Orleans Saints took a risk with the No. 40 overall pick in the 2025 NFL Draft, early in the second round.
That’s where they selected quarterback Tyler Shough out of Louisville.
He was the oldest QB in the draft, with a checkered injury history, but the Saints felt he might be able to solve their quarterback problem after Derek Carr’s retirement.
But on Tuesday, Saints head coach Kellen Moore announced that Spencer Rattler beat out Shough for the Week 1 starting job. And it runs the risk of being a draft pick spent poorly.
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Shough will turn 26 years old at the end of September. He’s exactly 365 days older than Rattler, who has already started games in the NFL.
It was a lengthy and winding college career for Shough.
His college career began in 2018 at Oregon with a redshirt.
Shough backed up Justin Herbert in 2019, started seven games for the Ducks in 2020 and transferred to Texas Tech in 2021.
A broken collarbone kept him out until 2022, then he broke his fibula in 2023. He transferred to Louisville for 2024 and played an injury-free season.
So he’s been hurt a lot, lasted in college forever and isn’t exactly a spring chicken.
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Moore liked that in his initial comments after the draft.
“We saw it as a positive,” Moore said Friday night. “He’s been through a lot of football, he’s been exposed to a lot of different settings. And the quarterback position, these guys aren’t reaching their peak for a while. He’s going to continue to rise and grow.”
Apparently, it wasn’t enough to earn Shough this starting job, though.
He was the third QB off the board behind Cam Ward (No. 1) and Jaxson Dart (No. 25) in April’s draft.
It’s up to Shough to not let this QB2 role bring him down in the early going, because otherwise the Saints will have really missed the mark on this choice.
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