What did Saints QB Tyler Shough prove with the upset with over the Panthers?

What did Saints QB Tyler Shough prove with the upset with over the Panthers?

From Fox 8 Sports, this is the Overtime Podcast from the Gulf Coast studios in New Orleans. This is the Fox 8 Overtime podcast. I am your host Sean Fazan riding shotgun as he does each and every podcast. It’s Andre Johnson. Do not forget the junior is very important. Remember the JR at the end of the name. Before we get into today’s content, be sure to like, to share, to rate, to review. If you’re watching us on YouTube, do us a favor. Hit that subscribe button. Get the bell notification for when we drop that fire content. Also, hello to the GF Coast Sports and Entertainment Network. Glad you have found us here. Please stay here. There’s a lot of content here. We don’t care how you got here. We’re just glad that you are here. So, tell your friends about the GF Coast Sports and Entertainment Network. Andre, it is Monday, Victory Monday. For just the second time this year, the Saints, the black and gold, go to Carolina and get the victory. A well-earned win. Not a fluky win by any ch any stretch of the imagination. They went to Carolina and thoroughly beat their NFC South flow flow foe the Carolina Panthers. Of course, we’re going to get into that because if they won, that also means a certain quarterback won. And you know, we’re going to go there today. I’m blending in with the back wall here. I’m seeing him with this with this blue shirt. So, I kind of like this thing here. So, anyway, all right. How you feeling on this Monday? I’m feeling good. You know, we don’t get many victory Mondays here in the city. This is only our second one, and I don’t know how many more we’re going to get. So, I am going to cherish this victory Monday. And like I said, the first victory Monday. I’m going to try not to make it in overreaction Monday. But there is a lot to be excited about because the Saints came into the game in Carolina what, five and a half point underdogs against a Carolina team that had won four of their last five. And Tyler Shuck made history in a way. He became the first Saints rookie to win a game since 1981. The longest streak or drought, I guess you could say, in the NFL. Finally broken Tyler Shuck winning a game for the Saints as a rookie, beating the Carolina Panthers in a pretty big upset. So, that leads us to the big picture topic. Sean, what did he prove? What did he show you in that big upset on Sunday? All right. Um, let’s get into this because, uh, yeah, I watched that game unfold. You kind of alluded to it. I’m going to reiterate it. I’m not here to overreact. I’m not here to underreact. I’m just here to react accurately to what I saw Sunday with Saints rookie quarterback Tyler Shook. First thing, big picture off the top of the page, big headlines, biggest of big picture is simply this about his performance. Just by watching him play, you would have never known that was a rookie making his second start. The body language, the poise, you can just feel Shuck’s maturity, his mature presence on the field. In fact, if you told someone who had no idea about the Panthers and Saints and they just watched the game and said, “Pick the rookie quarterback based on the game they just played.” The answer would have almost certainly been by that unknown person who had no idea about the Saints and Panthers, Bryce Young, both by the way they play and frankly one looks like a rookie physically and one does not. There has been a lot of talk about Tyler Shuck’s age and usually that talk is met with a negative tone. He’s already 26 yet he’s a rookie. Well, Shuck based off one game and it is one game kind of flipped that script on Sunday into a positive. Yes, he’s a rookie, but he’s a 26 year old rookie. Big difference between 26 and say 21 or 22. And like I said, you can feel that maturity when he plays. As for his actual football play, remember this is very important. We are not looking at it through the lens of Shuck versus Rattler. That ship has sailed. That debate is over. We are looking at it through the lens of is he the franchise guy or not? And I think we can safely say after Sunday’s win, he’s taken the first first step in showing that he can be that guy. Let me emphasize, it’s only the first step. Still a long way to go, but it was a positive first move. Shuck excelled in all aspects. The biggest being, and my biggest concern of his, poise under pressure. Did not panic when the blitz came or the pressure came. In fact, he made the Panthers pay when they brought pressure. He navigated muddy pockets, extended plays when needed. He was money. Let me reemphasize that. Money on third down. From his very first one to Jawan Johnson where he escaped a snack a sack and navigated, found him open downfield to keeping drives alive all game long. He was accurate. He was explosive. Four plus plays. Four plays of 25 or more yards uh passing plays in this game. Took care of the ball. No real turnover worthy throws. If you really go back and watch it, I mean, he made some some difficult throws, but they weren’t really turnover worthy. And if you look at the passing plays that were called, you could tell Kell Moore has faith in Tyler Shuck. He called more plays with more spacing downfield with the route concepts. Huge for a quarterback and play caller to be on the same page. He had a great game. He looked fantastic and they needed him to be fantastic cuz he was um in a game where it was a little bit of a grinded out type of game. If I were grading him, I give him an A minus. Why the minus? I didn’t go higher because if I hit one for this, I got to hit him for this. Only 17 points. Still only 17 points, which was more than enough in this game. But I think at some point the game will dictate needing more points and hopefully that day comes soon. And based off of what we saw Sunday feels like that day is coming soon. And if you’re the Saints, you have to be pleased with what you saw, right? I mean, you have to be pleased with what you saw out of show. If he gives them this level of consistency over the next seven weeks, and let’s just say they win three or four games, which is entirely possible, they will not draft a quarterback. They will not. And believe me when I tell you this, I think it’s a very important distinction to make. They don’t want to have to draft a quarterback. They wanted to work with the guy they have right here, who guy that they feel is a very mature 26-y old rookie. So the normal growing pains you would see from a young person playing quarterback. You’re not necessarily having to deal with that with Tyler Shug. So long way to go, only two starts, one of those a victory, but I think we can safely say that’s the best that’s the best a quarterback has played uh for the Saints this year. So, I think he had a good day. Not only is that the best a quarterback has played for the Saints this year, that’s the best the quarterback has played for the Saints going all the way back to that one uh 2 and 0 miracle start last season. He was better than even a lot of Derek Carr’s games last season. So, to start this off, Rad Pack, I hear the Shuck Squad is still accepting new members. that it’s not too late to join because someday man, you know, it’s not too late to make the Shuck switch. But all jokes aside, I mean, Tyler Shuck proved that he could be the guy. And that’s what this season is about. It’s about seeing if you have the guy at the most pos important position in professional sports, quarterback. I’m not saying he is the guy, just like if he had a bad game on Sunday, I wouldn’t come here and say, “Oh, well, we know for sure he’s not the guy. I would need to see a few more games.” I still need to see a few more games from Tyler Shuck, but I think that was a solid performance. I would give him an A in that performance. I mean, 19 for 27, 282 yards, two touchdowns. He didn’t put the ball in danger. He was poised, but also willing to take a deep shot and be aggressive. He elevated the people around him. And I touched on this on Friday. I And this was more about Kell Moore when I said it on Friday, but I I talked about elevating the people around you. That’s what a good point guard does. That’s what a good quarterback does. Alvin Chimera, who had been colder than pretty much any running back in the NFL, had what, his second best game all season. He finally was able to find some space. Devin Neil, the rookie, he looked pretty good on Sunday as well. Jawan Johnson, it’s the first game in a while that I can I can’t think of a Jawan Johnson drop. Jawan Johnson played well. Chris Olive had his best game of the season. Kell Moore, the head coach, called his best game of the season, in my opinion. Yeah. With Tyler Shuck in the game, the level in the room for everybody else rose up higher. The level that they have been playing at for the past two months rose up higher and it showed in the performance. Bryce Young is a thirdyear player that was drafted number one overall and he looked completely out of place on the other side of the field from Tyler Shuck. You mentioned it. Bryce Young looked like the rookie who didn’t know what he was doing and Tyler Shuck was out there playing like a veteran. I mean, Kell Moore able to really get into his bag of play calling with Tyler Shuck. It just it was a great game to watch. A big surprise in a way, but it it ultimately brought me to, you know, I did a little glass half, you know, full, now I got to do a little glass half empty. Why did we waste eight weeks? This is what Tyler Shuck looked like in his second start. We could have had this in week two like both of us said at the start of the season. Why couldn’t we have started Tyler Shug? Because it was close in the preseason. It was you went to pretty much every practice. It was close in practice, but what we saw on the field that wasn’t close. Tyler Shuck is the best thing that we’ve seen at quarterback for the Saints at least in a single game since the 2 and 0 miracle start where they beat the Cowboys and the Panthers last year with Derek Carr. And technically Shuck’s numbers are even better than Derek Cars were in that game. That was just more of an all-around team situation. So it kind of stuck me as well. I was like, man, if we were playing like this in week two instead of week 10, maybe the tone and goals of this season would be completely different. But you know what they say about ifs.s.s.s.s.s.s.s.s.s.s. I’m not going to get too deep into ifs and hypotheticals. End of the line, Tyler Shuck played a very good game. He’s going into a by-week where I’m sure he can really settle in and dive deeper into the playbook and into the system, but one good game isn’t enough. No, I am very happy to see Tyler Shuck play a good game. Now, let’s stack good games because coming out that buy, you’ve got Atlanta, very beatable team. You’ve got Miami despite the upset over Buffalo yesterday. Sporadic, man. Very beatable team. You’ve got the Tennessee Titans on the schedule. You’ve got the New York Jets on the schedule. You get to see those Panthers you just beat again. You got the Falcons again. You might even be able to beat the Bucks again. And all of a sudden for it’s something this city has not had in their football team in a little minute. There’s hope and that’s just an exciting thing to be a part of. And and that you said it. I mean it’s just things have really gone off gone off the gone off the deep end for really I mean if you want to think about it since the last time they were in Carolina. I mean it’s it’s just been bad thing after bad thing after bad thing since the last time they were in Carolina. So, a hope is maybe this time the visit to Carolina is the turn in the opposite direction. Maybe the turn back upward because what goes up must also come down. A couple things uh that I wanted to to bring up uh that you had had mentioned there. I wasn’t going to go there just yet with the why hasn’t why why did they wait this long? You went there. Let me just say I think by the end of the year that’s going to be a very valid question because look this was a this was a again it was a Carolina who I they were not as good as their record. We all agreed on that but it was a five and four team and it was on the road a team that was redot. They were they had won four straight games in a row. Um and he did he he looked like the veteran. So, did all it take was one game, one quarter really, where they didn’t even hold possess the ball for 17 minutes uh to uh overcome the whatever the the transition period is and all of a sudden he’s kind of there. I guess we’ll see. It just felt like uh if that is indeed the case and you just go back, your head just starts to spin. Well, man, they could have had this in week one or week two or week three or maybe they make the switch after week four and maybe you’re catching a little bit of momentum and maybe not two and eight right now. Maybe you’re four and six right now and you’re not. It’s not just a okay, next year’s draft is the most important thing right now. So, I do think those are all fair questions. I do think uh we’ll get the answer in due time, but I I I I think at the end of the day, what has impressed me is it’s not too big for him. Y um in fact the one and he has gotten tangibly better at the one thing I was extremely concerned with him about which was under pressure what he was going to do cuz he had some really panicky plays during training camp and preseason. Remember the throw off Caesar Ruiz? Y and that was very concerning to me um because that’s something you don’t always just just do better at that sometimes that’s just a natural instinct and he has done better with that. I mean some of those passes I’m going to break one down on BNG tonight. A throw to Chris Olive. not the touchdown throw, a throw kind of on an overall from the opposite side where he’s getting hit, he’s throwing. I’m like, that is next level play right there. And he did like six of those in the game. Um so, um hopefully that’s where um the progress is going up. Um I will also say sometimes you catch a guy team at the right time because you are so new, so fresh, there’s only one game of tape on you. Um so, we’ll see as the season progresses and more tape catches up to him, how he’s able to adapt and evolve after that. I do think Kell Moore um learned from last week to this week what he can and cannot call with Tyler Shuck and he called a pretty decent game. There were a couple questionable things that I thought I thought at times he went too heavy with Taesm, but I thought the end of the game when he closed out with Taesm was obviously a good thing because I think he kind of took over the game at the end. Um, but ultimately, um, I think you’re seeing the the seeds of a possible franchise quarterback, which more than anything else because they know they’re not going to get anywhere to where they once were unless they find the quarterback. And they have now tried like seven or eight guys. This organization wants, more than anything else, to have the guy at that position. Can he be that guy? We’ll have to wait and see. But Sunday was indeed a good start. And I’ll just say this. Um, you gota you gotta feel good. I mean, it’s it’s good to wake up and have this feeling on a Monday morning. Maybe I have the guy. And maybe um the guy we need is already in the building and his name is Tyler Shook. I guess we’ll find out. Yeah. You know, he and he made some highlevel throws and you touched on a few of them. And I’m not saying great throws for a rookie. Yeah. He made some great throws. the third down where he evaded the pressure and threw on the run across his body to Jawan Johnson for a 52 yard gain. That’s a big time throw. The deep ball to Chris Olive. I don’t care that JC Horn fell down. That’s a handoff. That was a 50 yard handoff to Chris Olive. Beautifully placed. He had one to Devon in the middle of the field where the window was tiny and he squeezed it between two defenders. And then another one, this one was an incompletion, but it speaks to what you said about panic. where before he would if he was pressured kind of just throw it intentional grounding. There was one where they were backed up against their own end zone and the pressure came and the sack was about to happen and he threw it at the feet of Deon Neil. That’s it. Incompletion. Nobody’s going to remember it. But it’s little things like that that show progress because that could have easily been a safe if that was intentional grounding in the end zone if he just threw it away or panicked or took the sack, fumbled. So many worse things could have happened. But having the awareness to see it’s okay. My checkdown’s right there. Throw it at his feet. That’s what you’re seeing. And he didn’t get that from playing because he hasn’t been playing. I mean, the guy’s been sitting for so long. And so many NFL quarterbacks have said, “You learn from playing.” And I don’t want to hear anybody say, “Oh, it was just the Carolina Panthers.” That’s the Carolina Panthers team that had Jordan Love. Yeah. Who’s considered a top 10 12 quarterback in the NFL in shambles? That’s a team that had Tua Tugaloa who just beat the bu the Bills yesterday in shambles. This is a Panthers team that has been on fire. This is a Panthers team that you take the game out that they played with Andy Dalton had won their last four games with Bryce Young at the helm. This is a Panthers defense that had been playing pretty well. Tyler Shuck came in and he was the best player on the field. But I know I just took my glasses off. They say hindsight’s 2020. I think that really might be the question when we get to December. Let’s say Tyler Shuck finishes the year four and four in the games he played. You know, let’s say that that he the Saints are five and 12 by the end of the year. You’re looking back and you’re saying, “Man, if the Saints started four and four this season instead of sitting here talking about April and drafts and whether you want a quarterback or not, we could be talking about the wild card playoff chase.” You know, this Saints the trajectory of this season could have been completely different. You know, in one game, in his second start, Tyler Shuck had a better game than Spencer Rattler did in 15. He beat his careerhigh in passing yards. In his second start, he had multiple passing touchdowns, something Rattler did twice in his career. I just in my opinion, I wish they had started with Tyler Shuck so that the team would be further along now, but you are where you are right now. This is where the team is coming off an upset win going into a buy and hopefully they can get a win streak going. Yeah, it’s interesting. the there’s always that debate about the by-week and now you’d almost feel like for especially for a rookie quarterback making his second start. He’s kind of in a little rhythm right now to to take the week off. You’d almost want him to just uh keep on going, but uh the schedule is what the schedule is. So, um I mean job well done. I mean that’s all you can really say is uh job well done. Um and again there’s there’s the there’s the the dueling like objectives here because there’s you want to develop you want to win. You don’t want to, they’re not in the business of tanking, but you also have to see, okay, is this guy good enough to avoid what’s happening or what’s coming next uh in the NFL draft. And a big part of that is going to depend on wins and losses, which is where they end up picking uh in the NFL draft. So, if they keep playing like that, or if he keeps playing like that, he’ll have his team in plenty of positions to win uh more often than not heading down the stretch because there’s a lot of very winnable games as you mentioned uh down the stretch. So, if they can somehow win for those games, you’re you’re probably talking about we we’ll look at another position, which they have a lot of other needs other than just quarterback. That would be the best case scenario and and roll roll with the Tyler Shuck show. So, all in all, uh great performance. I actually thought the first third down conversion, the one Jawan was the most important because he had gotten sacked the play before and he was about to get sacked again and you almost going to get that narrative in your head. Oh, he’s panicking on the pressure, panicking on the pressure. you know, he breaks contain, looks downfield, finds Jawan Johnson, to turns the field around, gets all the way down to the U to the Panthers 30, and I just thought that really set the tone for the rest of the day. He looked poised and comfortable the entire afternoon. So, a job well done by Tyler Sh. Job well done by the Saints defense who really shut down Rico Do um and basically said Bryce Young beat us. He couldn’t do it. He couldn’t do it. And look, year three for Bryce Young, you’re a Panthers guy. I don’t know. I I I’m if I’m them, I’m starting to wonder what does this guy do well and what can this guy truly lead my franchise to where we want. He can hand off he can hand the ball off to Rico really well. But ultimately, they should have been having questions about Bryce Young his rookie year, his sophomore year, year three. In year three, he just got outplayed by a rookie making his second start. Yeah, there’s a lot of concerns about Bryce Young that they need to address. They I they might want a Tyler Shuck in their locker room. But one one very important thing that I can’t believe I didn’t bring up earlier when it comes to Tyler Shug. What promoted the because I thought about A minus as well. What bumped me up to an A is you can make a lot of excuses for Tyler Shuck. Tyler Shuck was down two starting offensive linemen and Eric McCoy and Tales Puaga who did not play. A third starting offensive lineman got traded five days before the game in Trevor Penning. one of his most dynamic players on offense, Rasheed Shahed, traded. So, he had to go into battle without Rasheed Shahed, without two of his starting offensive lineman, and a third lineman got traded. That’s all from what I hear, it’s very difficult to win games with a patch together offensive line and when you don’t have your receivers, this that and the other. None of that mattered. He did not care. He went out and baldled. He took care of business. He did what he needed to do. And most importantly, the Saints got a win. Feels good. It just feels good to to feel like, okay, maybe there is a little hope here. Maybe there is a little something here. Maybe they can, you know, find some footing here. Maybe they can make this season a little bit more respectable towards the end and win uh the beginning. One thing that I I I did notice though, and they did this better in this game really since really what maybe the Buffalo game, they ran a football u they ran a football. Alvin Camaro looked good. uh Taome had his moments. Devin Neil looked good. Um and you know, I went back and rewatched it and it really boils down to two words. It’s outside zone. I’m telling you, they you know, I I’ve complained about this throughout the season. I don’t know what Kell Moore’s go-to running play is. Is it inside zone? Is it duo? Um you would see a little bit of outside zone sprinkled in, but last Sunday against the Panthers, they really focused in on outside zone. I’d have to get the actual analytics on how many based off all the running plays, but I’ I’d be willing to bet it was majority outside zone. What is outside zone? It’s letting a guy make one cut, read the crease, and go, not stop, start, stop, start like you do in some of the other running plays. And I thought Alvin flourished in that area. He even had a 16 yard run. That was almost a zone read from from Taesm. But I thought that was the difference. Uh that and frankly, look, maybe they knew what they were doing with Trevor Penny because now all of a sudden Dylan Reigns is in at left guard. they run the ball much better. Maybe that’s the case. Um, but I thought the the usage of the outside zone and the usage of Taesm in certain spots, again, I thought they went a little overboard early in the second half, but to close it out that way, I thought uh was a bit of a statement because that was they had the ball I think they got the ball back on that final drive. They had over six minutes on the clock. It was a 14play drive and they didn’t get the ball back. That’s an impressive way to close out a game. That’s a alpha male way to close out a a game on the road in your division. And they basically just said, “We’re running it down your throat, so you can’t stop us.” And guess what? Carolina couldn’t stop him. Yeah. You know, and it it was one of our fan questions, and it was similar to what you just said, you know, how do you feel about Tyler Shuck being taken out of the game in certain key situations on third and fourth down to bring Taesm in back? I don’t want to say back in the day because it hasn’t been that long ago, but Taesm Hills QB power on third and one, fourth and one used to be one of the most highest percentage plays in the NFL. And lately, the last few weeks, the Saints have tried it in certain fourth down situations and it hadn’t really worked. Right now, I think I’d rather Tyler Shuck out there, but I did think it was a good decision to have Taesm in at the end of the game where it’s kind of like number one, take stop Tyler Shuck from taking any hits. Let Taesm and AK be that dynamic one two-headed rushing monster, you know, let them do what they do to kill the clock. But yeah, I would kind of like to see Tyler Shuck in there on third and fourth downs because the thing about Taesm Hill, he doesn’t just have to be at quarterback to produce. You could put Taesm Hill anywhere from we’ve seen him flourish at running back, receiver, tight end, fullback. There are so many different positions Taesm can play to contribute to this offense. So, if him putting him at QB and letting him do his QB power thing isn’t working, try him out somewhere else. You know, I’m curious to see if that’s something the Saints do moving forward. Yeah. Um and and I still think we haven’t even seen the one aspect of Tyler’s game that I thought was underrated that he can run. I mean, we saw it in a preeason. And don’t be surprised if around the goal line, 11, 12 yard line, or if you’re inside the 10, inside the five, you call, you run that zone read, or you run that naked bootleg with Tyler Shut when you fake the hand off and he he runs around the end uh and scores one because I’m telling you, he can really move on the edge. So, that hasn’t even been unleashed yet. So, there’s a lot of fun things you can do with that. And you can almost envision Taes being in the back field, Allen being in the back field, Tyler also back there’s got that mobility as well. So, they haven’t even scratched the surface on what they want to do with that, but I thought it was very, very clear how much better Alvin Rant when they did outside zone. Uh, the blocking was cleaner. Uh, his vision was better. He seemed to have a he seemed to have regained a step a little bit. Um, and I I I I’ve always joked I call it Talvin Homera. It’s Taesm Hill and Alvin Chimera because there was a point in time in this offense where that was the the two-headed monster. That’s how you won games. Both those guys combined for 25 touches. They usually won games. They had 32 touches uh in uh yesterday’s game. Alvin looked fast, looked well balanced. That fourth and one run was probably the most underrated play of the whole game. Yeah. But he got stopped behind a line of scrimmage and he still was able to slip through there. Uh and then Taesm closing things out with the tough yardage that he brings. Now, I don’t think either one of them can do that takeover ability now week in and week out. But I do think if you use it in right spots, you can squeeze just enough out of them to where they’re effective. And I thought Sunday was the perfect example of that. And I’ll tell you what, Panthers, y’all got a lot of nerve because I was listening to the uh some postgame locker sound and Ianu, their young left tackle, essentially said they took the Saints lightly. You know, it was almost a a trap game. They didn’t put the level level of devotion in throughout the week to be as prepared as they needed to be on Sunday. It ain’t been that long since the Panthers were born and they sitting at the bottom of the league. The Carolina Panthers are not in a position to take anybody lightly. That’s such a weak excuse for me because if there’s anybody who knows what it’s like to be at the bottom of the league, it’s a team that’s been there for eight years since they lost Cam Newton essentially. So the the Panthers acting like they took the Saints lightly was crazy to me. But hey, you know, sleep on a team sometimes you get knocked out. Saints going to mess around and sweep the Panthers. Watch. They might sweep they might sweep the Falcons. How bad do the Falcons look? My goodness. I mean, they got the overtime and then I don’t talk about panics lately. He just He’s up and he’s down. He’s got some bad misses, man. We’ll see. All right, we got a few more seconds here. Yeah, we got to get out of here. All right, for Andre Johnson Jr., I’m Sean Fazan. Thank you for watching or listening. We’ll catch you guys next time on Overtime.

Sean Fazende and Andre Johnson Jr break down the #Saints win over the #Panthers, and dive into what rookie QB Tyler Shough showed them in his first win of his young career