Saints' Shocking NFL Draft Selection Has Glaring Red Flag

Tyler Shough is already nearly 26 years old and that's concerning for the Saints.

Louisville quarterback Tyler Shough during Pro Day at the UofL Football's Trager Indoor Practice Facility Tuesday, March 25, 2025. | Matt Stone/Courier Journal / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images

The New Orleans Saints used the No. 40 pick in the NFL Draft to select Louisville quarterback Tyler Shough. This selection shocked the NFL world as Shough went much higher in the draft than expected, going ahead of prospects like Jalen Milroe and Shedeur Sanders.

While Shough has been the subject of a lot of critiscim already, he's a very talented quarterback with a lot of experience already. Last season at Louisville, he threw for 3,195 yards and 23 touchdowns.

But there's one major red flag that comes with Shough: his age.

Shough is already 25 years old, heading on 26 years old, at the time of writing this. That makes him older than NFL quarterbacks Anthony Richardson, CJ Stroud Trevor Lawrence, Bo Nix, and Jayden Daniels, among others.

The Louisville product graduated high school in 2018 alongside NFL players Justin Fields, Amon Ra St-Brown, and Micah Parsons. He played under Justin Herbert while at Oregon for two years.

During Shough's freshman year of college, Kyler Murray bested Tua Tagavailoa and Dwayne Haskins to win the Heisman trophy.

Facts like these really put into perspective how old Shough is and how long he's been in college (seven years).

While age isn't everything in a prospect, it matters quite a bit. The Indianapolis Colts seem willing to give up on Richardson and he's still three years younger than Shough. Imagine where Richardson could be, development and talent wise, when he reaches Shough's age in three years.

This isn't to say that age is the end all, be all for quarterback prospects, but it definitely puts it into perspective. For this pick to be successful, the Saints need Shough to step up in a big way right now.

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