What Tyler Shough’s Success Means for Saints’ Long-Term Plans

Albert Breer’s mailbag dives in on the rookie quarterback giving New Orleans more flexibility. Plus, what’s next for the Bengals, Cardinals and Jets?

Tyler Shough has led the Saints on a three-game winning streak. / Stephen Lew-Imagn Images

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1. New Orleans Saints
2. Minnesota Vikings 
3. Arizona Cardinals 
4. Los Angeles Rams
5. Cleveland Browns 
6. New York Giants 
7. New York Jets   
8. Cincinnati Bengals 
9. Kansas City Chiefs and Baltimore Ravens 

You had questions, I had answers. So here comes a special Christmas Eve mailbag …

New Orleans Saints

From Haphael (@rsdatas): Is it too early to induct Tyler Shough into the Hall of Fame? Jokes aside, what’s your thoughts on him so far?

 Hap, you want to waive the waiting period, too?

The second-round pick has been really good. The Saints have won three straight and are 4–3 since naming the rookie as their starter. He’s been steady if unspectacular—completing 69% of his passes and throwing for 1,356 yards, six touchdowns and four picks in those seven games. Yes, he’s 26 and spent seven years in college, so maybe there’s a little bit of an element of what you see is what you get. Conversely, if he were 22, he may have been drafted much higher, based on his traits, and we may be discussing him differently now.

As it is, I’d say you can look at him from an honest point of view and see a player who gives the Saints flexibility this offseason. In other words, if the team sees some version of Joe Burrow or Josh Allen or Pat Mahomes available when it’s on the clock in April, I don’t think Shough has done enough to cause the Saints to pass. But if they’re a little iffy on what’s available to them? They can feel comfortable with Shough at least as a short-term starter.

And there’s power that comes with that.

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Minnesota Vikings 

From Atheist Ponder (@AtheistPonder): Do the Vikings make front office changes this offseason?

Atheist, there have been so many rumors on the future of the Vikings’ front office, and potential changes to it, over the past two years, that I’m in believe-it-when-I-see-it mode.

I’d also point out that if being 7–8 after navigating the quarterback injuries they have is some sort of low-water mark for this regime, then they really aren’t in bad shape. The roster is good. The coaching is elite. And, yes, there’ll be a lot of pressure on everyone there to get the quarterback position in order, whether that’s through J.J. McCarthy’s improvement or someone else being added to the roster, for 2026.

But with Kevin O’Connell and Kwesi Adofo-Mensah just having gotten extensions, I understand if ownership is going to give the setup they arranged in 2022 more time.

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Arizona Cardinals 

From Avi Soep (@AviSoep): How significant will the coaching changes in Arizona be? Just OC? Or will Bidwill clean house?

Avi, GM Monti Ossenfort and coach Jonathan Gannon have two years left on their deals.

That’s important to note because Arizona just ate a ton of terms on Kliff Kingsbury’s extension when firing him after the 2022 season, and may be reluctant to do it again. Also, owner Michael Bidwill’s history is not to blow things up. He got day-to-day control of the team from his dad in 2007. That year, the team fired Dennis Green, but kept GM Rod Graves, who hired Ken Whisenhunt. In 2013, he fired both, but picked a GM, Steve Keim, from within, and gave Keim three shots to hire coaches (Bruce Arians, Steve Wilks, Kingsbury).

So it’d be out of character for Bidwill to go for a hard reset. To that end, I’d say Ossenfort is very likely to make it to 2023. Gannon’s on shakier ground, but I don’t believe a final call has been made on that yet. Maybe Gannon will be let go. Maybe there will be staff changes, with OC Drew Petzing or someone like him biting the bullet, instead. We’ll see.

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Los Angeles Rams

From HayDay (@bhayv): Can the Rams still win the NFC West and get the No. 1 seed?

Hay Day—yes, they can. It’s just a little complicated. First of all, they’ll need to avoid a first-place tie with the 49ers in the NFC West. The cleanest way for that to happen, for their purposes, would be for the Niners to lose to the Bears this week, then beat the Seahawks next week. Then, if the Rams can hold serve against the Falcons and Cardinals, they’d win the West over the Seahawks on the division-record tiebreaker.

Then, they’d need the Lions to beat the Bears in Week 18, to get the No. 1 seed, since the Bears would hold the conference-record tiebreaker over them if they win out.

Is all that likely? No. But it’s not that far-fetched either.

Matthew Stafford & Co. fell to the Seahawks in Week 16 in a narrow OT defeat. / Kevin Ng-Imagn Images

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Cleveland Browns 

From Will McMahan (@wmcma): Why would the Browns feel comfortable allowing Andrew Berry to stay and be a part of hiring a new coach? I think the Browns need an established leader of men and not a yes man that has things dictated to him like Stefanski has.

Will, I think the answer to that question is that Andrew Berry has a really good working relationship with Jimmy Haslam and his family, the type of working relationship that the owner has been looking for since he bought the team almost a decade and a half ago.

I’d also give you a half agreement on your second sentence there. I don’t think Kevin Stefanski is a yes man—my opinion is the failure of the Deshaun Watson trade has made a lot of things awkward, in a way that probably would’ve been hard to prevent. But I would agree that if the Browns are out there looking for a new leader, someone capable of bringing the sort of change Dan Campbell did to Detroit would make a lot of sense.

Who would that be? That’s the problem. I don’t know if there’s anyone ready-made now the way, say, Mike Vrabel was last year—when he was actually working for the Browns.

From Ian Schwifty (@cashmoneykid89): Is Kevin Stefanski getting fired in 13 days?

Again, I don’t think Haslam is quite sure what he’ll do yet (that’s just my read on it). But I do think we’re at a point, after all that’s happened the past four years, where maybe everyone is at the “It’s best for everyone to move on” stage. And I love Stefanski as a coach, and think he’d be a really good fit for a team like the Giants, if he becomes available in January.

Speaking of the Giants …

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New York Giants 

From Pendulum Throws (@PendulumThrows): 1) Chances Schoen returns at this point? 2) What would Marcus Freeman’s buyout at ND be? My suspicion is it’s going to be too high for him to be a serious candidate.

Pendulum, I’d say the scenario in which Joe Schoen does not return as GM would have the Giants hunting down a coach who insists on bringing his own GM with him. And based on where things stand on the market now, I don’t know that there’s a coach the Giants will simply point to, like New England did last year with Vrabel, and pursue without any sort of real search conducted.

On Freeman, because Notre Dame is a private school, his buyout isn’t public. But given NFL teams’ willingness to spend eight figures per year on coaches now, my guess is that whatever Freeman’s buyout is wouldn’t preclude the Giants from making a run at him.

Now, as I see it, I think the Giants are intrigued by Freeman, but may not have him as some sort of runaway front-runner. I also believe Freeman won’t leave Notre Dame yet, but is intrigued by the idea of, at some point, moving from college to the pros. And because of the complications that come with an NFL team pursuing a college coach, it’d be a tightrope walk for both sides to get something done. So while I’d never say never, I wouldn’t bet on this one.

From Jimmy T (@jimmy_tomredle): Based on what you are hearing, who do you believe has a very good chance of becoming the next Giants’ head coach?

Jimmy, it’s a good question. Here are some names I think might fit: Jeff Hafley and Chris Shula from the younger set, Mike McCarthy and Brian Flores as guys with previous head coaching experience, and Lou Anarumo and Joe Brady as potential wild cards. Schoen has a working list of about 10 candidates he’s working from. So I don’t think this is going to be a search like, say, the Jets’ search last year, which was all over the place.

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New York Jets   

From Matthew Lownes (@LownesMatthew): Is Woody Johnson growing as an owner? Has he learned from the Aaron Rodgers–Robert Saleh debacle? Jets fans can’t trust him right now.

Matthew, your distrust is well-founded, and I wouldn’t say it’s time to dive in with both feet on Woody Johnson making it work this time around.

That said, he has given Aaron Glenn the shot to grow over the course of the year, and it looks like Glenn will get a chance to build into 2026. He’s also given GM Darren Mougey the shot to mold the roster as he sees fit. I know people around Johnson thought the core a new regime would inherit a year ago was solid—and no one’s stopped Mougey from deconstructing it, in off-loading big-money guys such as Sauce Gardner and Quinnen Williams.

Those are good signs, and obviously leave a lot of work to do (namely, at quarterback), and maybe smaller staff changes to come, as the Jets look toward next year.

So, how sustainable is Johnson’s patience for rebuilding? How much restraint is he capable of displaying when things get really hot? It’ll take time to answer those questions, which are the real ones when it comes to judging whether Johnson has changed.

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Cincinnati Bengals 

From Husky Walker (@AZWhoDey): So it’s been widely reported that Duke Tobin, Zac Taylor and Al Golden are safe in Cincinnati. This is despite some of their biggest players saying changes need to be made (Burrow, Chase, etc.). What types of changes could be on the way, if not personnel-based?

Husky, I did ask Zac Taylor this week about the pressure he and his staff, and GM Duke Tobin and the personnel folks, feel to put a championship product around Joe Burrow.

“We want to give ourselves a chance,” Taylor said. “We put in a lot of work, and we know we can get back to that very quickly. This was a down year for us, a disappointing year, but that doesn’t mean that we’re not ready to get back to it, and reload and compete for a division championship, AFC championship, and get back to playing in the Super Bowl.”

So how does that happen? The Bengals have the offense to do it now. So the defensive changes will be interesting—with DC Al Golden now entrenched. It’s clear the team didn’t do enough over the past few years to make up for the losses of guys such as Jessie Bates III and D.J. Reader. I’d be stunned if Trey Hendrickson was back next year. So the team has a bit of a blank slate to work from, to build a unit that fits what Golden is looking for.

Now, the question will be how far ownership’s willing to go to accomplish that.

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Kansas City Chiefs and Baltimore Ravens 

From Pessimism of the Intellect (@Trill_Parcells): Do I still need to watch out for KC and BAL to turn things around this year?

You have a long memory, Pessimism. But I can respect a grudge held. So I’ll give you this: I was wrong this time around on the Chiefs and Ravens.

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