And, as a former college athlete herself, she was there to strike the right tone when Shough shared the exciting news.
“She was like, ‘Good. Go out there and win,’” Shough said. “She’s not really satisfied, and neither am I.”
[He is a starter, but this is a starting point.](https://www.nola.com/sports/the-future-is-now-for-the-new-orleans-saints-tyler-shough/article_a1844a25-f56f-4b86-ad0e-a28a72467ecc.html) He now holds the title he first let himself dream about when he was a kid wearing a Brett Favre jersey, but he also understands the reality of his situation. Shough is taking over a 1-7 football team that has not performed well on offense this season.
“There’s a lot of work to be done,” Shough said.
The Saints are invested in Shough, having selected him 40th overall in this year’s draft. But they’ve been content to let him develop in the relative shadows, with Shough’s only game experience coming in garbage time against the Seattle Seahawks prior to his takeover in the second half of last week’s loss to Tampa Bay.
But the Saints have seen the maturation while Shough has operated the scout team offense during practice.
It’s not a perfect setup. Shough’s job was to give the starting defense a look at what the opponent might do in a given week, meaning he’s not running his own playbook. The receivers he was throwing to were not the ones he will work with on Sunday, and the same thing is true for the offensive line.
There are benefits to it, though.
“One of the best things that comes out of being a scout team quarterback is the pockets aren’t going to be ideal,” Saints coach Kellen Moore said. “You’re playing against your starting defense and the goal in practice is to make the blitzes and everything look good, so you’re going to be in some challenging compromised situations.
“You’re going to have to force yourself to adapt and hang in there and still deliver a throw.”
Moore watched Shough develop more feel for how to navigate muddy pockets — a knock on Shough coming out of Louisville and something he sometimes struggled with during training camp. He also noticed the rookie beginning to test his limits, pushing to see whether he could make a certain throw or decision.
The latter part of that, Shough said, was “huge.” The scout team reps gave him some additional freedom to try different things that he may not have done while practicing within the structure of the typical offense.
“From a timing element, the pocket presence, ripping seams, hole shots, finding the check downs, finding different different routes, doing everything you can to manipulate defenders, it's been really good to kind of test that,” Shough said.
That behind-the-scenes look was enough for New Orleans to pull the trigger on the quarterback switch — one that Moore reiterated Wednesday afternoon was not going to be temporary. With nine games remaining, Shough will have every chance to fail and learn without having to wonder whether his job is in jeopardy on a week-to-week basis.
“Tyler’s starting,” Moore said. “We’re not looking back on that.”
While Spencer Rattler played well for significant stretches of this season, the Saints offense has lagged toward the back of the NFL pack. New Orleans ranks near the bottom of the league in every major statistical category, none more important than scoring offense — only three teams are managing less than the Saints’ 16 points per game.
So while Shough said he’s gotten a positive reception from his teammates after his appointment in the starter’s seat, he acknowledged that this isn’t exactly some cause for celebration.
“Obviously it's not a fun situation,” Shough said. “We're 1-7 right now. We've got to go out there and play better.”
Shough won’t get much of a break for his first start against the Los Angeles Rams. He will test that pocket feel he honed while running the scout team against one of the NFL’s best pass rushes, and he will try to fix the Saints’ scoring problem against the league’s No. 3 scoring defense.
Moore shrugged off the timing of Shough’s debut against the Rams, saying “there’s no soft landing” in the NFL. If Shough is going to continue to develop as a player, he’s going to have to do it in challenging circumstances.
“I'm going to make mistakes, so I'm going to do everything I can to learn from those mistakes, and then just have fun doing it,” Shough said. “... What a great opportunity to go out there and just let it rip.”
And, as his wife reminded him, to win.