In the end, it was the other rookie quarterback who stole the show in the final home game of Cam Ward’s first season.

That’s not to say Ward’s performance left a bad taste in the mouths of the Nissan Stadium faithful, during the New Orleans Saints’ 34-26 victory over the Titans.

The No. 1 overall pick did, after all, throw a pair of touchdown passes for the fourth straight week. He also completed 21-of-40 passes for 251 yards, finishing without an interception thrown for the third straight game, and for the seventh time in his last eight contests.

It’s just that Tyler Shough — drafted 39 spots behind Ward in April, and making his eighth career NFL start — was the better of the two first-year players, especially when the game was decided in the fourth quarter.

It was Shough, not Ward, who looked like a polished veteran — albeit against a vastly depleted Titans secondary — as the former Louisville standout completed 22-of-27 passes for 333 yards, averaging 12.3 yards per attempt.

He threw two touchdown passes, zero interceptions and posted a second straight 300-yard game through the air, finishing the contest by producing the third game-winning drive of his first year.

“Tyler, just an awesome, awesome game,” Saints coach Kellen Moore told reporters. “The composure, navigating stuff early. Big play after big play. He’s obviously having a special season. I know he doesn’t start the season as the starter, but just the way he’s handled himself through this whole journey, I think [is] really, really special.”

On the other hand, Ward, for all the good he did against the Saints, also surrendered a strip-sack fumble that was returned 33 yards for a Saints touchdown by Chase Young. It was the 11th fumble of the season for Ward, and his seventh lost fumble, two categories in which he leads the NFL.

“We can’t have the sack fumble for a touchdown,” Titans interim coach Mike McCoy said. “That really hurt our football team. But [Ward] just continues to get better. He’s learning. I just talked to him. This is another game to learn from.”

Added Ward: “The end of the day, I need to keep two hands on the ball, and that’s why they were able to get one off of us. I just got to protect the ball.”

Ward was unable to lead the Titans to a touchdown in the second half, and he managed to lead Tennessee to just 62 net yards — and zero points — on the team’s last four possessions.

Are there some disclaimers that need to be mentioned here?

Absolutely.

Shough was throwing passes against what might have been the most patchwork secondary in NFL history.

The Titans lost starting cornerback Jalyn Armour-Davis to a torn Achilles early in the contest, meaning the top remaining corners were Darrell Baker, Jr., Kaiir Elam and Kemon Hall. One of the Titans’ starting safeties was Kendell Brooks, who was making the second start of his two-year career.

Ward, meanwhile, was going up against a Saints defense that ranked fourth in the NFL against the pass, allowing an average of just 177.3 yards per contest.

There’s also the fact that Shough had a three-time, 1,000-yard receiver in 2022 first-round pick Chris Olave to throw to, while Ward’s targets consisted of a trio of mid-round rookies and a batch of veteran journeymen.

That said, it was hard not to be impressed as Shough, who led the Saints’ offense to 24 second-half points. He was robbed of more by a Dante Pettis fumble into the end zone that was recovered by the Titans for a touchback.

Shough threw for 251 yards and two touchdowns in the second half alone, while putting together a near-perfect fourth quarter connecting on 5-of-7 passes for 164 yards and one TD.

Ward’s day, meanwhile, ended in frustration.

The Titans twice had possession of the ball trailing 34-26, but got no closer to the end zone than the New Orleans’ 37-yard-line.

On Tennessee’s penultimate possession, the team turned the ball over on downs, after Ward threw three straight incompletions and suffered a fourth-down sack.

On the Titans’ final gasp, Ward had to find some way to throw a Hail Mary attempt into the end zone from the New Orleans 43-yard-line. Instead, he waited too long yet again, taking a sack as the final seconds ticked off the clock.

“I’ll have to watch the tape to see exactly, ‘Hey, could we have gotten rid of the balls sooner on certain plays? What is it? Were players covered? Is it a progression?’” McCoy said. “Something like that. So, I’ll have a better answer once I watch [the tape Monday].”

One thing McCoy won’t need to see revealed on tape is that Shough performed better than Ward in the game’s most meaningful moments.

That’s not to say it will always be the case.

“Week in and week out, he’s starting to show everybody those type of plays that he’s going to make, and not just the easy ones, but the ones that are really difficult to make,” McCoy said of Ward. “So it’s great to see him do that.”

But at a point in the season where some thought Ward would be on his way to claiming rookie of the year honors, it’s looking like the third quarterback picked in the draft — not the first — is the more worthy candidate.