The New Orleans Saints invested a second-round pick in the 2025 NFL Draft to select Tyler Shough 40th overall. While Shough is a rookie, he’s also 25 years old, and so one NFL expert believes that the signal caller has to hit the ground running.
Because of Shough’s age, The Athletic’s Dave Helman believes that the quarterback needs to win the starting job over Spencer Rattler. If he doesn’t, the Saints could be second-guessing themselves, which wouldn’t be ideal for Shough.
“If Tyler Shough doesn’t win this job Week 1, it’s not a condemnation on him or suggesting that he can’t go on to become a good player,” Helman said on “The Athletic Football Show.” “But he is not on a forgiving timeline with his situation. If he doesn’t win the job for Week 1, that means it’ll at least be a few weeks before he gets the opportunity.
“And again, how good do you have to be to remove the front office’s doubt? I mean, you’ve got to be incredible. And not winning the job Week 1, again, it’s not a career-ender, but it’s just a sign that that is probably what’s going to happen.”
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Moreover, investing an early second-round pick on a player, organizations hope that they can become a foundational piece. If New Orleans whiffs on their selection of Shough, Helman believes they’ll be kicking themselves over the other options the Saints could’ve taken rather than using it on a quarterback in his mid-20s.
“You look at it, and there are so many interesting players that got drafted [after] him,” Helman added. “Will Johnson comes to mind, with what you see he’s doing in Arizona; Mason Taylor with the Jets; a couple [of] other guys where you’re like, ‘Yeah, in two years, are you going to wish you had that guy,’ or a quarterback who just didn’t really have a very long runway.
“Obviously, we can’t guarantee the Saints are going to draft a quarterback in the first round next year right now, but it is an educated guess that that could happen. I hate the timeline for him.”
It will be interesting to see how this quarterback battle plays out for the Saints, but it could be a bad start if Shough can edge out Rattler for the job.
