There was no way to make a list of New Orleans Saints superlatives and not include Tyler Shough. Shough was barely edged by Chris Olave as the team MVP. For Rookie of the Year, we took a non quarterback approach to highlight another talented rookie just because Shough was a sure bet to land elsewhere. His performance in his rookie campaign earned him a four way tie in our Biggest Surprise award. The rookie quarterback stands alone as the Saints Offensive Player of the Year.
Shough played in 11 games and started 9 of them. Even in that small time, he broke multiple Saints rookie records. That may say more about the Saints history of rookie quarterbacks, but that's another story for another day. Stats aside, Shough aced the eye test and gave the fan base encouragement for the first time in nearly half a decade.
You draft rookie quarterbacks to come in and change a team's fortune. Sometimes it takes longer than a year to accomplish that turnaround. It certainly tends to take more than nine starts, but that's what Shough was able to do. The turnaround isn't as dramatic as Jayden Daniels taking the Commanders to the NFC Championship Game, but it was clearly the start of a turnaround.
Tyler Shough showed all the makings of the Saints franchise quarterback through elevating talent around him
The ability to elevate talent around you is one of the biggest tell tale signs of a franchise quarterback. The best part of Shough's rookie campaign is weapons kept being taken away from him, but he kept prospering. In the season finale, Shough threw a touchdown in the closing minutes to Ronnie Bell. Bell didn't have a catch before Week 18, but was playing significant snaps in the final game.
That was a product of injuries and deals that dwindled the weapons around Shough to a point where just Juwan Johnson was the only skill position player on the field that was a Week 1 starter. The Saints lost their top three running backs due to injury. Olave missed the final game due to blood clots, Devaughn Vele was held out with a late season injury and Rashid Shaheed and Brandin Cooks finished the year on different teams.
That's not a circumstance conducive to the success of a rookie, but Shough still made it work each time. It wasn't pretty, and the offense definitely needs to improve, but it was enough to be encouraged by. It's no longer improving the quarterback. It's watching him develop and surround him with better pieces this offseason.