Saints committed to Shough as starting QB in ’26

METAIRIE, La. — The New Orleans Saints are preparing to move ahead with Tyler Shough as their starting quarterback in 2026.

A second-round draft selection in 2025, Shough went 5-4 as the Saints’ starting quarterback after taking over for Spencer Rattler in November. Shough completed 67.6% of his passes for 2,384 yards and 10 touchdowns, ran for three touchdowns and threw six interceptions.

Shough drew attention as a potential Offensive Rookie of the Year candidate after the Saints won four straight games in the second half of the season. He showed enough to impress Saints coach Kellen Moore, who said Wednesday that the team feels «great with Tyler» after being asked if they were comfortable moving forward with him.

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«Tyler’s done an awesome job through this entire process. He’s gotten a ton better. He’s taken advantage of a bunch of opportunities,» Moore said. «We’re excited to have a full offseason to build.»

Shough, 26, was drafted amid a period of uncertainty regarding then-starting quarterback Derek Carr, who told the Saints prior to the draft that he had a significant shoulder injury that could affect his 2025 season, and announced his retirement two weeks after the draft.

«I would say that it just catches you a little bit off guard,» Saints general manager Mickey Loomis said of that time period. «And so you got to kind of recalibrate. … It just changes your course a little bit.»

Rattler won a lengthy quarterback competition over Shough at the conclusion of training camp, but the Saints made the permanent quarterback switch after losing six of their first seven games. Loomis said they were high on Shough during the draft process, but they didn’t feel a need to rush his development.

«I probably am overly patient. Sometimes your greatest strengths become a weakness, and so I’m really patient, I feel like, and whether it helps or not, hopefully it does,» Loomis said. «I think it does, but I’ll continue to be that way.

«Again, we’re excited about Tyler … but we have to remember that he hasn’t had 17 starts yet, so we’re going to go into next season with these high expectations and there’s nothing wrong with that. But we also have to temper that by the fact that … he’s a second-year quarterback and he’s had less than full season to start. So we’ve got to keep that in mind as we go forward. There are building blocks here and we cannot skip any steps.»