Assessing Shough's Play - TV versus In Stadium

Your friend isn't a very good analyst. Shough played good, especially considering protection breakdowns and next to no run game.

Shough isn’t a problem. He had no time and has 3 NFL caliber options to throw to.

Shough is functioning despite being under constant pressure.

But, he's showing signs of that impacting him. The flinches and throwing off the back foot are becoming more common.

It's a death sentence to be unable to run block or pass block. This his how you ruin a good young QB.

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My friend said that on TV Shough looked like he did not know where to go with the ball and just otherwise looked bad with both accuracy and decision making.

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If by this statement your mean the commentators, well, duah, Buck and Aikman are the basement of MNF teams, maybe only Dennis Miller is below them and Aikman hates the Saints and refuses to acknowledge anything good about them.

Watching the game would leave you disagreeing with everything your friend said.

was Shough perfect? Hell no

But given the shite he had to work with in front of him, I'd say he did better than average.

Shough hesitates too often, double clutch if you will. He has to trust his receivers. Just look at the 2 point try against Detroit. You have arguably one of the best receivers wide open at the 3 yard line and you double clutch. Get the ball to Olave and let him earn his pay.
Instead, you double clutch again and then throw a desperation pass that, even if caught, would have been out of bounds.

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Shough hesitates too often, double clutch if you will. He has to trust his receivers. Just look at the 2 point try against Detroit. You have arguably one of the best receivers wide open at the 3 yard line and you double clutch. Get the ball to Olave and let him earn his pay. Instead, you double clutch again and then throw a desperation pass that, even if caught, would have been out of bounds

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Shough physically played well last night outside of a handful of plays/throws.

I wonder about Shough mentally though. There were a few times he was off with his WR's and hard to know who was in the wrong without knowing the play call. Also from watching on TV and not seeing the full set of routes being ran hard to know if his progressions were good or bad. It's mind numbing that every 3rd and long leads to a 35 yard bomb. Knowing if that is bad play calling or Shough making bad decisions when going through his progressions is impossible to know without knowing the play call.

It seemed like every single drop back in the game he had very little time before he was getting hit.

And somehow was only sacked twice. But he had to have been hit like a dozen times. It was the worse I’ve seen our OL look maybe ever.

I mean if he hangs in the pocket longer than two seconds on those third and longs he’s getting sacked. If he sees that pressure and throws the go route he’s taking sack/fumble/field switching INT out of play. Some of that is probably a reaction to the turnovers against the raiders where he tried to wait for guys to come open and longer developing routes and got hit for turnovers.

When you have no run game and an oline being dominated a lot of times your only options are risk a TO or try the quick go ball