Behind the Steel Curtain
Taking a look at one of the draft’s most polarizing prospects.
Approaching the 2025 NFL Draft, we’ll be scouting as many of the top prospects that the Pittsburgh Steelers could have their eye on anywhere from Rounds 1 through 7. We’ll break down the prospects themselves, strengths and weaknesses, projected draft capital and their fit with the Steelers.
Louisville’s Tyler Shough is one of the more intriguing prospects in this year’s underwhelming quarterback class. At first glance, he’s a late-round flier, but the tape reveals a very good passer. Should the Steelers be interested?
Louisville’s Tyler Shough (pronounced “shuck”) isn’t exactly a hard evaluation on tape. But his draft projection? Near impossible.
He’s a good quarterback — we’ll get to that shortly — but Shough’s profile comes with two massive red flags: his age, and his injury history.
The “seventh-year senior” in the bio section of this article isn’t a typo. Shough collected extra NCAA eligibility years like infinity stones during his college career, seemingly taking notes from former Oregon teammate Cam McCormick. Shough is currently 25 with a September birthday, meaning for the vast majority of his rookie campaign, he’ll be 26. He’ll be nearly 30 when his first NFL contract is up.
Quarterbacks play forever these days — the Steelers are desperately trying to sign the 41-year-old Aaron Rodgers at the moment — but age is an undeniable concern with Shough. Not only does it shorten his prime years in the NFL, but it rushes the development calendar as you don’t want Shough (if a presumed starter) wasting too many years on the bench. And then, of course, there’s the question of if Shough’s immense college experience is the main reason why his 2024 season was so good.
But Shough also has a surprising lack of on-field experience for a player who had the time to earn four degrees as a student-athlete. He has just one full season under his belt with 42 career games played — and in the first eight he attempted just 15 passes combined. The reason, outside of Shough’s slow start at Oregon, would be the injuries that decimated his 2021, 2022, and 2023 seasons at Texas Tech: a broken collarbone, a re-broken collarbone, and a broken fibula in consecutive years.
That’s been enough to give Shough the dreaded “injury-prone” label, but he’s made sure to point out that the injuries were all broken bones — not knee or back issues. And he was finally healthy for his 2024 season at Louisville, showing off what he can do when he’s able to play more than seven times in one season.
Shough’s draft profile comes with a lot of baggage that will undoubtedly affect his draft stock. But with that out of the way,...
