Not everyone is feeling warm and fuzzy about New Orleans Saints rookie quarterback Tyler Shough.
Shough, widely expected to be New Orleans’ QB1 to begin the 2025 season, was selected at No. 40 overall in April’s National Football League draft.
After an abnormally long college career that saw Shough play for three different schools, the 25-year-old is more experienced than the average rookie, thereby convincing many onlookers that he’s ready to lead the Saints right away.
But for FanSided’s John Buhler, Shough is entering a can’t-win situation.
“Even though the Saints are not expected to do much, they are not setting Shough up for success,” Buhler wrote.
“Kellen Moore is a first-time head coach. Doug Nussmeier has never coordinated in the NFL before. … While I do not want to see a player with NFL talent like Shough be fed to the wolves, it was always his destiny to experience a baptism by fire by being drafted this high. … To me, he will either sink like Jimmy Clausen did in Carolina, or he will sort of swim like Davis Mills did a few years back when he was drafted by Houston.”
“Where the disappointment is going to arise is (that) Shough is being asked to do the impossible. … The worst part in all this is if he stinks, then the entire Saints regime is going to throw him under the bus. … For better or worse, Shough will wear it. While I am pulling for him to be more like Mills, I am afraid that he is destined to be the next Clausen.”
Buhler’s Clausen comparison for Shough is a stretch.
Clausen, who played college football at Notre Dame, was a national story as the most highly-touted high school recruit in America before he ever took a snap for the Fighting Irish. Such a hyped-up beginning to his career already makes him a difficult comp for Shough.
There are also clear physical differences between he two QBs. Clausen was smaller than Shough at six-foot-two (Shough is six-foot-five).
Both players were drafted in the middle of the second round (Clausen went No. 48 overall in the 2010 NFL draft), so there’s that.
Admittedly, Buhler’s comparison is refreshing in that its realism (bordering on pessimism) stands out amongst a ton of other Saints observers viewing 2025 through rose-tinted spectacles.
But at the same time, Buhler is probably underselling Shough, as well as Kellen Moore.
