Too Deep 96 #96: Tyler Shough and Jalen Milroe (Tie)

The three-week extravaganza of predraft excess is finally coming to its merciful conclusion! This final installment covers a pair of quarterbacks who might be worth drafting in the third round for a team that is into drafting quarterbacks in the third round. Of course, the Saints are just about the only team that’s “into” drafting quarterbacks in the third round, and they had better not wait that long. Anyway, let’s land this bumblebee in the clover patch:

#96 (Tie) Tyler Shough, Quarterback, Louisville

Have you ever wondered what Shedeur Sanders would be like if he were a tall, burly, soon-to-be 26-year old white guy whose name rhymes with “Duck?” The answer is Tyler Shough.

At least, that’s what I thought while watching tape of Shough against Boston College in 2024.

Shough threw an interception while scrambling in the first quarter of that game. He bounced an RPO slant off a defender’s chest on the next series. Boston College took 20-0 and 27-10 leads. Shough then led a comeback full of improvised big plays, though he clanged another near-interception off a defender and threw a fourth-quarter pick after the Cardinals took the lead in an eventual 31-27 victory.

The chaotic style and comeback against Boston College were pure Shedeur. So was much of Shough’s four-touchdown performance in the shootout loss to Miami. Shough’s tape in that game is full of throwaways and dubious decisions while scrambling backwards. But he also led the Cardinals back from behind and kept them in a wild game until late in the fourth quarter.

Shough also resembles other quarterbacks in this draft class at times. In Louisville’s rushing-and-defense fueled win over Clemson, Shough looked like a cross between Jaxson Dart (flummoxed by tight coverage and pressure) and Cam Ward at his weirdest (side-armed RPOs and screens that arrive like knuckleballs).

Shough has fine footwork in a clean pocket. He scans the whole field. He can often find open receivers, but he also throws some passes to covered targets that only his receiver can catch. His arm is lively, he runs pretty well in the open field and will fight for yardage on sneaks. He was effective in a system that emphasized RPOs (42-of-53, 520 yards, 5 TDs, 0 INT; 13% of Shough’s passes were RPOs) for a team that ran the ball very well. (Keep an eye on Isaac Brown in future drafts.) But Shough’s portfolio is not all RPO fluff. He has most of the traits of an NFL starter.

Including age.

Shough turns 26 in late September. He started his college career at Oregon in 2018. He backed up Justin Herbert for two years. That should remind you how long ago 2018 was.

Shough took over as Oregon’s starter in COVID-impacted 2020. He played poorly in the second half of that truncated season, ending up in a rotation with Anthony Brown by the Fiesta Bowl.

Brown (who is now in the UFL) won the Ducks starting job for 2021. Shough portalled to Texas Tech, where he became involved in a three-man dogfight for playing time. He won the Red Raiders’ starting role outright in 2022, only to miss two months with an injury to his non-throwing shoulder. He came on strong after the injury and started the first four games of 2023, but suffered a fractured fibula early in a loss to West Virginia.

Shough portalled to Louisville late in the 2023 season. Last season was his first as an uncontested starter for anything close to a full year.

Long college sojourns like Shough’s are becoming more common. Making sense of them feels a little like trying to interpret Babylonian poetry written in cuneiform. If a quarterback prospect keeps using the transfer portal to climb the program ladder, ending with a great NIL-sponsored year with a powerhouse, it’s a likely sign to ignore the fact that he’s about to turn 24. If he lists sideways (and a little backwards) for seven years, never totally nailing down a starting job until he’s 25 years old, before finally having a solid-not-spectacular season that ends with an opt-out of the Sun Bowl, the ancient texts are trying to warn you that he’s gonna peak as an NFL backup.

Roughly two-thirds of NFL decision makers do not understand age curves at all. Many of them have the concept exactly backwards. They’ll see a 25-year old college quarterback and get excited about his “maturity” instead of asking why someone eight days older than Trevor Lawrence was still in college last year.

Shough will get overdrafted by some quarterback-thirsty team. He may get a starting opportunity. He’ll be more mediocre than terrible.

#96 (Tie) Jalen Milroe, Quarterback, Alabama

In a post Super Bowl LIX world, we must entertain the possibility that the slightly-undersized runaround quarterback from Alabama named “Jalen” might someday become the Super Bowl MVP.

In fact, its so easy to conflate Jalen Milroe with Jalen Hurts that it may be instructive to point out the many ways in which they are dissimilar.

Hurts won Alabama’s starting job as a freshman. He led the Tide to the National Championship game in 2017, though Tua Tagovailoa came off the bench to replace Hurts and win the game.

Tua replaced Hurts in 2018, but Hurts remained a package quarterback, and he returned Tua’s favor when he came off the bench to lead a comeback victory in the 2019 SEC championship.

Hurts then portalled to Oklahoma, threw 32 touchdown passes, ran for 20 more, led the Sooners to a Big 12 championship, and finished second in the Heisman voting.

Hurts also enjoyed a solid Senior Bowl week where he demonstrated that he could do conventional quarterback stuff like take snaps from under center and throw from the pocket.

Milroe backed up Bryce Young as a freshman and sophomore. He won the Alabama starting job as a junior when Young departed, though he was briefly benched in favor of Tyler Buchner. Milroe responded to the benching with a strong season, including 23 passing and 12 rushing touchdowns.

Milroe backslid in 2024, in part because the Tide program is in transition after Nick Saban’s retirement. He threw 16 touchdown passes (but had 20 rushing touchdowns) for a 9-4 team that finished its season with a loss to Michigan in the Let’s Fool Casual Fans Into Thinking This Game is Important Bowl.

Milroe then attended the Senior Bowl and, during practices, looked like he was in danger of tripping over his own heels and choking to death if he tried to walk and chew gum simultaneously. Too much can be made about Senior Bowl practice performances, as many quarterbacks are asked to take under-center snaps and perform standard dropbacks for the first time in their lives. But Milroe looked like the very concept of resetting his feet in the pocket and throwing toward the sideline was completely alien to him.

Do you see the slight difference in the career arcs outlined above? Hurts and Milroe have similar names, height-weight measurements and rushing styles. But if Milroe’s first name was Justin and he played for Michigan or Georgia, few would compare him to Hurts, and most analysts would hand-wave him as a speedy system product and Day Three prospect.

Milroe ran a wide-open schoolyard offense for the Tide in 2024. He attempted 48 passes from empty-backfield formations (35-of-48 for 478 yards, four touchdowns, one interception and four sacks), adding 29 rushes for 131 yards and 5 touchdowns. Play caller Nick Sheridan liked to string together lots of shifts and presnap motion to create rushing opportunities and easy reads in the passing game.

Milroe runs exceptionally well, makes all sorts of fascinating things happen when scrambling and can deliver strikes to an open first read. But if asked to stand in the pocket and find an open target, Milroe delivers too many sacks, interceptions, and poorly-placed misfires. Hence his issues at the Senior Bowl.

Here are Milroe’s statistics for 2024 when he was in the pocket AND under pressure, as well as the stats for other major major prospects:

Shedeur Sanders: 46-of-75, 743 yards, 8 TD, 2 INT, 19 sacks, 7.0 ANY/A

Jaxson Dart: 30-of-64, 613 yards, 4 TD, 1 INT, 20 sacks, 6.3 ANY/A

Tyler Shough: 38-of-75, 570 yards, 5 TDs, 3 INT, 11 sacks, 5.2 ANY/A

Cam Ward: 36-of-55, 404 yards, 5 TD, 0 INT, 17 sacks, 5.3 ANY/A

Jalen Milroe: 30-of-68, 315 yards, 3 TD, 3 INT, 15 sacks, 1.5 ANY/A

One of those Adjusted Net Yards/Attempt figures above is not like the others. The data shows Sanders and Dart mixing plenty of huge plays with their mistakes when pressured in the pocket, Ward avoiding turnovers, Shough avoiding sacks, and Milroe just being hopeless.

It’s worth pointing out that Hurts is also at his worst when loitering in the pocket as pressure develops, and that he thrives in a system designed to scheme up rushing opportunities and straightforward presnap decisions. But Hurts’ ANY/A when pressured in the pocket at Oklahoma in 2018 was 7.6. And it’s rather silly to project a mid-round quarterback into some hyper-customized system that will mask his weaknesses.

Milroe reminds me a little of the Ohio State quarterbacks of the Urban Meyer era, particularly J.T. Barrett, who led the Buckeyes to a national championship as a freshman in 2014, led the B1G in touchdowns in 2017, then went undrafted because he was clearly a runaround guy in a friendly system. Milroe is a better prospect than Barrett was, and he did not have the supporting cast last year that Barrett or Hurts enjoyed in the 2010s, but Barrett is a closer comp than Hurts.

Milroe ran an unofficial 4.37-second forty at Alabama’s Pro Day. That number sounds a little fishy, and I saw some sources quoting a 4.46-second forty. There is no question that Milroe is fast. But when a quarterback’s standout metric is his unofficial 40 time, it’s probably wise to temper any comparisons to the reigning Super Bowl MVP.

(Hurts ran an official 4.59-second forty in 2020.)

Too Deep Housecleaning

Thanks to everyone who has followed along for all or part of the Too Deep 96. I’ll be assembling a master list with links VERY SOON so that you can find players after the teams you follow draft them. I will also be reposting links on Bluesky throughout draft weekend to drum up business.

Here’s what’s on tap for draft weekend:

Thursday, April 24th: Look for a chat thread. We can hang out and share our thoughts throughout Thursday and Friday nights. I will probably be more active on Friday than Thursday — I have a first-round synopsis to write — but I will be around.

Friday, April 25th: Round One Analysis.

Monday, April 28th: Draft Performance Assessments, Part 1 (AFC, probably).

Tuesday, April 29th: Draft Performance Assessments, Part 2 (NFC, probably).

After that, Too Deep Zone will slip into full offseason mode, with a mix of the final two All-Time QB Top Fives, a new Hall of Fame Debates series, and columns about whatever Aaron Rodgers is up to.