All New Orleans Saints fans can breathe a sigh of relief as Taliese Fuaga will return from injury against the Miami Dolphins. Fuaga missed two weeks, and thankfully for Tyler Shough, he'll be back this week.
The Saints felt Fuaga's absence in the running and passing game against the Atlanta Falcons. The Saints' deficiencies in pass blocking were the most obvious, as there weren't many runs that ran towards the right tackle. Shough saw a lot of pressure on Sunday though.
Fuaga's replacement, Asim Richards, allowed a total of five pressures in each of the last two games, per Pro Football Focus. Allowing those pressures versus the Panthers is more concerning, but regardless, the Saints will be happy to get one of their stud offensive tackles back.
Tyler Shough see less pressure with Taliese Fuaga back in the starting lineup
Tyler Shough was sacked five times last week against the Falcons. That's a big increase from the two times he was sacked against the Panthers. That's not all due to Fuaga's absence, but it certainly played a part.
We expected Shough to be under more pressure against Atlanta. The Falcons have better pressure numbers than the Panthers. Atlanta is third in the league in sacks, while the Panthers are second to last. The Falcons have standout rushers in Jalon Walker and James Pearce Jr. The Panthers' don't, so we knew it would be a tougher task with or without Fuaga. There's no question, though, how much the Saints missed Fuaga.
Of Shough's five sacks, Richards was involved in two of them. One of the sacks was Pearce just flat out beating Richards in an one on one scenario. Not much to it other than Pearce winning the rep with a bull rush. That likely wouldn't have happened against Fuaga, at least not like that. The other sack was against Cesar Ruiz. Richards tried to help when he noticed Ruiz losing the rep. Fuaga has shown a knack for helping when he doesn't have work in front of him.
The Falcons' young edge rushers are important. This isn't to say Fuaga would have erased everything, but he would have fared better than Richards. Against the Dolphins, Shough should have more time and better production with Fuaga back in the fold.