The Saints didn't rest their starters for the sake of resting them in this joint practice window. Shough and the first-team offense logged roughly 50 snaps against a Jaguars defense that ranked among the league's best against the run last season, and by most accounts New Orleans won the day. Shough hit Chris Olave on a toe-tapping touchdown, found rookie Bryce Lance on a shot play down the field, and the run game had its moments too. It's one practice. But it's the kind of practice a team wants on tape before the games start counting.
Context matters here. Spencer Rattler opened 2025 as the starter, went down, and Shough took over in Week 9 and never gave the job back, guiding New Orleans to a 5-4 finish. He threw for 2,384 yards and 10 touchdowns on nearly 68% completion across 11 games, added 186 yards and 3 scores on the ground, and finished as runner-up for Offensive Rookie of the Year. This preseason isn't an audition. It's a guy locking in the job he already earned and trying to build on it against real competition instead of backups.
That's why Tuesday's joint session with Dallas and Thursday's with the Rams matter more than Saturday's actual preseason game did — New Orleans sat its starters for that one specifically to save them for these two practices. Both the Cowboys and Rams ran top-tier defenses by total yards allowed last year, which makes this stretch a legitimate measuring stick. If Shough handles Micah Parsons and company on one side and Aaron Donald's old unit's successors on the other, that's a real signal heading into Week 1. If he struggles, that's a signal too.
For fantasy purposes, Shough is currently sitting around QB19-QB23 in early ADP, which is a gift given how he actually played down the stretch. From Week 9 on he averaged 16.4 fantasy points per game — good for QB14 among qualified passers over that span — while ranking 6th in completion rate and 7th in passing yards per game. Six straight starts to close the year with at least 17.1 fantasy points is not rookie noise, that's a guy who figured something out in real time.
The weapons around him got an upgrade too, which is the part fantasy drafters keep undervaluing. Travis Etienne joins the backfield as a real explosive-play threat, and first-round rookie Jordyn Tyson gives Shough another vertical option to pair with Olave. A quarterback who already flashed a 20.9% deep-ball rate as a rookie now has more people to throw it to. That's the kind of situation that turns a QB2 into a streaming darling — or better.
The betting market is starting to notice. New Orleans opened with Under juice on its 7.5-win total and the line has since flipped, with the Over now the shorter price. The Saints sit as the second choice in the NFC South at +265, and none of that happens without real belief in what Shough showed as a rookie translating into a full season as QB1.
None of this means much if he can't handle Dallas and LA the way he handled Jacksonville. Both those units are more talented and more disguised than what he saw this week, and it's fair to want to see the completion numbers and the protection hold up before fully buying in for redraft or best-ball purposes. But as a late-round dart throw at quarterback, Shough is exactly the profile fantasy managers should be circling — cheap cost, real weapons, a proven late-season track record, and a schedule this week that will tell you whether it was real or matchup-dependent.
Watch the practice reports out of both sessions closely. A clean week against Dallas and LA doesn't just validate the QB — it validates the offensive line and the receiver room heading into games that actually count, which is the whole ballgame for where Shough's ADP settles by the time drafts wrap up.