Editor’s note: The Saints announced Tuesday that they will start rookie quarterback Tyler Shough against the Los Angeles Rams in Week 9 Sunday. This story was originally published on Aug. 4, 2025.
METAIRIE, La. — Tyler Shough has received multiple text messages of encouragement since the New Orleans Saints selected him with the 40th pick in April’s NFL draft.
Former Saints quarterback Drew Brees offered support after Shough was drafted. Another message was from 76-year-old Archie Manning, who regularly reaches out to quarterbacks who attended the Manning Passing Academy.
Manning is one of the few people who truly understands the high expectations placed on the rookie’s shoulders in New Orleans. Shough is the Saints’ earliest quarterback selection since Manning was picked No. 2 out of Ole Miss in 1971.
When New Orleans opens the season Sept. 7 against the Arizona Cardinals, Shough could become the seventh rookie quarterback to start a game for the Saints, following teammate Spencer Rattler, who made his debut last season when Derek Carr was injured.
And if Shough wins the competition with Rattler and Jake Haener, he will buck convention in other ways. Shough, who turns 26 on Sept. 28, is the oldest rookie in the draft class, and he arrives in New Orleans after seven college seasons spent at three universities (Oregon, Texas Tech and Louisville). He played through three major injuries (two of which ended his seasons in 2021 and 2023) and the COVID-19 pandemic.
If Shough feels the weight of NFL expectations, he doesn’t show it.
He said it would be easy to compare himself to peers such as Brock Purdy, a former high school competitor in Chandler, Arizona, who is going into his fourth season with the San Francisco 49ers. The Jacksonville Jaguars’ Trevor Lawrence and the New York Jets’ Justin Fields, 2021 first-round picks, were also college freshmen at the same time as Shough, and are examples he cited as comparable quarterbacks who had early success.
“Who knows who I would be or where I would be if everything had worked out [differently],” Shough said. “It worked out the way it was supposed to because now I’m in [this] opportunity with a great team and kind of a fresh start with a new staff.”
Shough, who celebrated his one-year anniversary with wife Jordan in April, said he is settled at this point in his life.
Now he just wants a chance.
“That’s why I feel so, so much more ready to come into this situation and because of those previous experiences, just understanding what it looks like from a failure perspective, from having success, trying to earn the respect of your teammates and just being in a new city,” he told ESPN during an exclusive interview this summer.
“It makes sense why some guys don’t last that long. … Some things are out of your control, but you’ve got to be prepared for change.”
AFTER TWO SEASONS of backing up Justin Herbert at Oregon and one pandemic-shortened year in 2020, he entered the transfer portal in February 2021, enrolling at Texas Tech, where he dealt with significant injuries for the first time in his career.
He broke his collarbone four games into the 2021 season (missing the rest of the year), and then rebroke it in the 2022 opener. He came back for the final five games of the 2022 regular season and was named MVP of the Texas Bowl after a 42-25 win against Ole Miss.
Shough said seeing then-fiancée Jordan, who played soccer at Oregon where they met, and his family after that win was one of his best college memories.
“It was a lot of emotions because everything that [happened] … like, ‘Man, you stuck it out and you saw some good come out of it,'” Shough said.
The highs of that moment made the following year more difficult to bear. Four games into the 2023 season, Shough was carted off the field with an air cast on after a hip-drop tackle by a West Virginia defender resulted in a broken fibula.
“It was just a lot of true ups and downs to where at that point you kind of understand, ‘Man, my time here is probably done at Texas Tech,'” Shough said.
Jordan said the injuries were “emotionally draining” on Shough, but he kept perspective during the healing process. Jordan said he’d show up to the middle school where she taught and coached multiple sports, often bringing her lunch and encouraging her students.
“He would show up to their games and come to their practices … with me and just do anything and everything that he could be at, which was super special for them because he was kind of this person in this community at that point,” Jordan said. “… It was cool for the 12-year-old boys to see this man that they looked up to treat women really respectfully … come and help out and talk about how he can be goofy, and he can make fun of himself, and it’s OK.”
Despite the uncertainty around his football future, Shough would tell Jordan things were going to be all right. “Jordan, this is going to work out,” he would say.
“It was just not even a question of, ‘If I’m ever going to play football again.’ He was just like, ‘This is what I love, this is what I’m going to do. I know it’s going to work out.’ … He just has this kind of unwavering sense of self about him that is pretty remarkable,” Jordan said.