The New Orleans Saints can't play any more football games after Week 18, but they also can't stop winning with Tyler Shough at the helm.
The latest conquest came in Nashville with the Saints taking overcoming a 10-point halftime deficit for a 34-26 win and another landmark performance for the rookie QB in a shootout with No. 1 overall pick Cam Ward.
The Saints biggest playmakers went off, as did a running back that joined the team midseason. The Saints hair their longest win streak since the 2020 season. Saints football is fun again.
With all that in mind, here are my stock up and stock down players (and some lagniappe) from a day out in Nashville.
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1. Tyler Shough, OROY
Rookie of the year is a story award, and man — Tyler Shough just keeps adding page after page to one heck of a rookie year story.
There’s a lot of players who have had a hand in turning this season around and energizing a fanbase, but there’s simply something special about a quarterback you believe in. That’s true for the fans, but it’s also true of his teammates. You hear it, you feel it. There’s a sense that no matter what happens, he’s going to find a way. That might not always be true, but we’re now 7 starts in and other than a rocky debut against a Super Bowl-caliber Rams team and a near miss in Miami, all we’ve seen is winning football.
You won’t convince me that the Bucs and Panthers are playing better football than the Saints right now, and that’s due in large part to the play of No. 6.
"Tyler has just had an exceptional year," head coach Kellen Moore said. "His composure, his growth, a really, really special season. For him to navigate this and kind of the momentum I think we’re carrying as we’ve gone through this journey together is really, really special."
Things didn’t start well in this game, which has been a theme of this season. When the Saints ran off the field at halftime Shough was the team’s leading rusher with 8 yards. The Saints offense only generated 3 points — with a mised field goal baked in — and needed positivity. They got it immediately out of the break with Shough going 3-for-5 for 56 yards on a 9-play, 74-yard drive that was finished off with a 19-yard touchdown to Chris Olave.
The Saints offense put up 331 yards and 24 points in the second half. It was a second straight 300-yard passing performance with zero turnovers. Shough is the first rookie quarteback to have back-to-back 300-yard passing games since CJ Stroud in 2023. Guess who won offensive rookie of the year that season?
There’s only two others in the Super Bowl era who have done that without an interception: Dak Prescott and Joe Burrow. The former was rookie of the year, the latter would’ve won it if not for a devastating knee injury that ended his season prematurely.
Tyler Shough has done everything you could ask and more. He’s made winning plays, even when things don’t go as planned, like when what looked like a go-ahead touchdown pass to Dante Pettis was punched out and recvered in the end zone by the defense. He came back on the next possession with a bomb to Olave and a touchdown to Kevin Austin. Oh, and that reminds me … the Saints went into this game down to Chris Olave, Juwan Johnson and a host of players who either started this season on the practice squad or not on the roster at all.
Here are Shough's numbers over the last month and the four-game win streak:
- 91-128 (71.1%), 957 yards, 4 TDs, INT
- 102 rushing yards, 2 TDs
- Three game-winning drives (at Bucs, vs Panthers, at Titans)
- Two 300-yard passing games (vs Jets, at Titans)
This season was dead in the water in a lot of ways until the Saints made the QB switch. Moore said the team was looking for a spark. They got more than that, they found hope and a light at the end of the rebuild tunnel.
That’s what franchise QBs provide. That’s your rookie of the year. ROY that man.
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2. Audric's impact
I've been saying for a few weeks now (and in this very column) that I wanted to see more lead back work for Audric Estime. Not that I'd seem him be dynamic and flashy, but for the opposite: He generated positive plays.
One of the things that's been frustrating to watch this season in the Saints' rushing attack is how often plays have gone for zero or negative yardage. It's amazing how much of a difference it makes when those no gains turn into even just 2 or 3 yards. That's what I'm confident Audric can get, even if some of those runs with some explosive potential turn into 2 or 3 yards.
For whatever reason the Saints seemed hesitant to lean into that despite Devin Neal, Alvin Kamara and Kendre Miller all out with injuries. Against the Panthers it was just 3 carries. Against the Jets it was just five carries. That was the case again in the first half against the Titans with just 2 carries for 6 yards. Tyler Shough's 8 yards led the Saints at the break.
That changed after halftime, with Estime doubling his season carries to that point. Here's how they went:
- +6
- +9
- +2
- +1
- +7
- +9
- +4
- +12
- +9
- no gain
- +32TD
- -3
Body blows take their toll over time, and that's the effect the big, bruising back seemed to have on the Titans defense. The long touchdown run wasn't by design, it was simply a back finding a way and an offense that didn't quit.
That's a theme that's representive of the Saints this season, and also Estime himself, who was cast off from the Broncos after being picked in the 5th round last year. Who knows what's next for Estime beyond this season, but I want to see more in Week 18.
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3. Takeaway Chase
The Saints threw their lot in with Chase Young this past offseason, inking the former No. 2 overall pick to a lucrative, three-year contract. It was easy to question while the star edge rusher was sitting out for the first five weeks due to a calf issue, but the vision has been clear ever since.
Young picked up another 1.5 sacks in this game, including an impressive strip of Cam Ward that the DE turned into the second touchdown of his NFL career. He's now up to 8.5 sacks on the year, a career high despite only appearing in 11 games. Young's touchdown came at a moment where the Saints needed a spark and that's exactly what it was, trimming the deficit to 13-10 late in the first half. I have a bit of a gripe with the ball security because it got a little too close for comfort to a punchout at the goal line, but no harm, no foul ... right?
Carl Granderson doesn't go down in the stat book, but he definitely had an assist on the strip sack and Chase said he owes his teammate "a couple steak dinners." Fair. It wasn't a sack party like we saw with eight against the Jets, but the Saints did log another four in this game as well as another 10 QB hurries and six TFLs.
Young has been one of the premiere pressure players this season. You sign players to big-money extensions because you expect big impacts. That's what the Saints have been getting from him, and there should only big bigger days to come down the road.
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Bonus: Who Dat Nation
Saints fans would be forgiven for phoning in the final few weeks of the 2025 season that will land outside the playoff bracket for a fifth consecutive season. That was anything but the case out in Nashville on Sunday.
The sections behind the Saints bench are always littered with black and gold, but this week it was virtually all Who Dat fans. It was so noticeable that at points you might've forgotten it was a road game. Perhaps it's the Tyler Shough effect, perhaps it's the short drive and cheap tickets. Whatever it is, the Saints QB took notice.
“It felt like it was equally as loud on third downs for some of them and at their own home stadium and that’s awesome to see," Shough said, "when you’ve got people traveling like that, the fans just at our hotel, at the game early, you know, they’re active and you know, it’s the best fanbase in the country.”
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A few more
Chris Olave continued to show he can be the dynamic receiver this team needs. Despite battling a back issue he went off for another 119 yards and a touchdown, eclipsing 100 catches on the season and hauling in his 4th 50-plus-yard reception this year after going two full seasons without one. The Saints sure look to have a lot of the offensive pieces they need to keep building around … Juwan Johnson had another impressive day with 4 catches for 95 yards. He's now caught 20 of his last 21 targets over the past month after struggling with drops early in the season. There's a lot to like. … Charlie Smyth was battling an illness heading into the weekend and definitely struggled a bit in the windy conditions, missing from 43 and doinking a PAT through off the upright. But he continued to show the long-distance ability that the Saints have been so enamored with, knocking through kicks from 56 and a career long 57 in clutch situations. Short misses can't become a theme, but the long kicks are a weapon. Hopefully he can find a balance there. ... Cam Jordan has officially finished off his bonus buffet. Sack No. 9, which he picked up on a replay assist that showed Cam Ward's knee was down ahead of a spectacular throw late in the game, triggered another $600K incentive. That means he's accounted for $2 million in incentives in his reworked contract prior to the season. Not too shabby for an old guy. ... Not a ton to say about Moliki Matavao, but the rookie did haul in the first two receptions of his NFL career for 10 yards. Gold star.
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STOCK DOWN
Plaster
I'm going to start off by saying that it's anything but easy to stay glued to receivers as the QB extends plays for a lifetime. Cam Ward's average time to throw was 4.07, according to NextGenStats, the highest number since they started tracking the statistic.
When the clock struck zero Quincy Riley dropped to the turf in exhaustion. It was that kind of game.
Still, I'd like to see better. There were a few too many instances of receivers finding wide open space in critical situations. I also have evidence that the Saints can handle this situation better because it's not dissimilar to what Caleb Williams was doing in Week 7. There was also an ugly moment when Kool-Aid McKinstry made an ill-fated attempt to strip the ball from Titans TE Chig Okonkwo after a 4th down completion. It was a good example of why the first tackler shouldn't be the one going for the strip, because Chig broke free and scored a touchdown.
Room for growth.
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Stopping Jeff Simmons
The Saints don't have any of the interior offensive linemen they started the year with and it showed early in this game. The Saints offense managed just 17 rushing yards and 3 points in the first half, and a lot of that was due to unrelenting pressure up the middle.
We knew it was going to be a challenge, but that's an issue this team needs to address in the offseason, both in terms of adding starter-caliber players but also quality, developing depth pieces.
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Chasing Cam
As mentioned above, Cam Ward was able to hold the ball FOREVER in this game. That was due to a few things, one being that the Saints were loading up to stop the run and when the Titans QB did execute a hard play action he was able to just glide around with DTs chasing him.
I still wasn't a huge fan of the effort on some of these plays. I get it, if you're John Ridgeway you know your job isn't really to chase the QB to the sideline, but someone's got to do it. I think the struggles in that area were the biggest sign of not having Bryan Bresee, whose athleticism I think we sometimes take for granted as an interior rusher.
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A few more
Kai Kroeger. A 17-yard punt? I mean, seriously, SEVENTEEN yards. He was fine the rest of the way, but a 17-yard punt is effectively a turnover. The Titans didn’t move the ball on their next possession and got 3 points. Saints still need a punter. … The Saints are already without Foster Moreau the rest of the way and it now looks like they'll be without Jack Stoll. That's more a problem in the blocking than pass-catching. Let's call it an opportunity for the young guys. … It pains me to put Dante Pettis in this section, because his run after the catch in the 4th quarter that came just a few feet from putting the Saints ahead was one of the more impressive plays any Saints receiver has made this season. Unfortunately the play ended with the ball being punched out and the Titans (somehow) recovering the ball in the end zone. It didn't faze the Saints, who got the stop and scored the go-ahead TD on the next play, but it did mean the final moments of this game were a bit more stressful than they needed to be.