Tyler Shough is impressing the Saints with his leadership | Saints

Last week’s game against the Tennessee Titans offered a unique experience for New Orleans Saints rookie quarterback Tyler Shough.

He and fellow rookie quarterback Cam Ward went through the game wearing a microphone for NFL films. It was a “dream come true” for Shough, who said he used to watch the NFL Films Mic’d Up segments on YouTube in class.

But the experience was more than a signal of his arrival in the NFL — it was also instructive.

NFL Films sent some of the rough film to Shough, and he started breaking it down the way he might with the all-22 game film.

“How (am I) interacting with my teammates on the sideline?” Shough said. “How does that look and sound?”

Sunday’s regular-season finale against the Atlanta Falcons will be Shough’s ninth NFL start. He has quickly established himself as the future hope of the franchise, having played a large role in driving the four-game win streak the team is riding into Week 18.

Though his play between the whistles has been the engine for that excitement, the Saints are enamored with the leadership qualities Shough has displayed in this debut season.

“Until you’re up in front and leading the group, you’re not going to see that part of it,” coach Kellen Moore said. “He’s taken on a leadership role each and every week.”

Moore likes the way Shough processes things quickly and moves on, good or bad. The level-headedness and next-play mentality breeds positivity and optimism on the sidelines, the coach said. And it also comes in handy on the field.

There was a play last week where Shough pulled the ball on a read-option and was stuffed on the ensuing run. It was the wrong decision.

“That play happened and it’s over — you never get it back, you never get to change it,” Moore said. “I know the (play) he’s talking about. He tried to pull the ball on first down. It happened. The next play, he threw a touchdown. So I would say he handled it pretty well.”

Leadership is one of those topics that came up early in Shough’s starting tenure. While he’s older than usual rookies, he was still a first-year player stepping into an important role on a team that already had a number of veteran leadership voices in the locker room.

His comments then were the same they are now: The most important thing Shough can be, in his opinion, is himself.

“You can’t be fake; everyone is going to see through that, especially grown men.” Shough said. ”… You’ve got to be real with everybody. That takes time. I’ve been able to slowly, step by step, earn the respect of the guys I’ve been working with.

“… Kellen does a really good job of allowing this team to be player-led. He’ll say his two cents after a game or practice and allow somebody else to break it down or have something to say. That’s really cool, because we’re the guys on the field, we’re driving it.”

It helps that Shough has been nails on the field.

Since he took over as the starter in Week 9, Shough ranks among the NFL’s top eight passers in rating (97.2, 8th) yards per game (249.2, 7th), completion percentage (69.2%, 3rd), and interception rate (1.5%, 8th).

He’s been exceptional during the Saints’ four-game win streak — especially late in games. Shough has compiled a 115.2 passer rating in the fourth quarters of the last four games, and his 413 fourth-quarter passing yards rank second in the NFL during that span. Three of those four wins came with Shough leading a go-ahead drive in the final quarter.

Following the latest fourth-quarter comeback against the Titans last week, during which Shough completed five of his seven passes for 164 yards and a touchdown (rating: 153.3) in a 14-point fourth quarter, offensive tackle Taliese Fuaga said “we have belief.”

“Tyler right now is playing with so much confidence,” Fuaga said. “I don’t see him being fazed at all in any moment of that game. He’s just like, ‘We’ve just got to pick it up. We’re fine. We’re good.’ A confident quarterback like that — he’s giving us confidence out there. Everybody’s buying in right now.”

And the NFL Films segment showed that. In the clip disseminated after the game, Shough is shown speaking with receiver Chris Olave on the sideline about the amount of man coverage Tennessee was playing, and that he wants Olave to “run by him” the next time they saw it. The next clip features Shough firing a touchdown to Olave against man coverage.

That is an example of what Shough describes as his “thermostat leader” style.

“I want to control the temperature and the feel of the offense,” Shough said. “I don’t want to just go with the flow of it; I want to make sure we’re operating at a level or we’re kind of chunking along. A lot of times, a lull or silences are not a great thing. We’ve got to make sure we’re constantly communicating, good and bad.”

Then, after Shough’s go-ahead touchdown to Kevin Austin in the fourth quarter, the NFL Films cameras caught fellow rookie Torricelli Simpkins saying “keep lighting they a** up” to Shough.

Being himself may be the key to Shough’s leadership abilities, but he knows it’s built on more than that.

He’s been around the block. He backed up Justin Herbert at Oregon, the first of three college stops. He arrived in New Orleans and had to wait for his turn behind the scenes. He can pull from all of that to help inform his leadership style.

But the biggest thing he’s learned, he said, is this: “Whenever you have success on the field, there’s a natural element of earned respect.”