Tyler Shough NFL Draft 2025 profile: Full scouting report, pro comparison, future outlook and more

Born in late September 1999, Tyler Shough (pronounced “shuck”) was the fourth of five kids to a family in Chandler, Arizona. To say the family has overcome major obstacles — the kind that helped shape Shough into the athlete he is today — is an understatement. In 2006, Shough’s older brother passed away and his mother, Dana, was diagnosed with stage-four breast cancer. Instead of breaking, Shough’s mother embraced a fighter’s mentality and her family followed suit, instilling a focus and unwillingness to quit inside of son Tyler.

The fighting spirit paid off — Dana is still alive today, and Tyler’s dedication to sports helped him in his quest to go pro.

Baseball was among the sports Shough began to play when he was five years old, at one point being teammates with Brock Purdy in club baseball in eighth grade (they hit fourth and fifth in the lineup). Football was also in Shough’s rotation, first flag football and then pee-wee, which is where he got his start playing quarterback. He got local attention based on how good of a thrower he was and ultimately started at Hamilton High School’s junior varsity team while backing up the varsity quarterback.

By his junior year he was starting for the Huskies, and for two years became arch-rivals with Perry High School and their star quarterback Brock Purdy. The current 49ers QB won each of four meetings including a gutty 63-60 overtime playoff win in the Arizona state quarterfinals. Despite those losses, Shough garnered a ton of looks from college recruiters in 2018 (the same recruiting class as Trevor Lawrence and Justin Fields) and was considered the No. 1 quarterback recruit in Arizona and a 247Sports four-star prospect.

Recruited from some big-time programs including Cal, Arizona State and Alabama (Brian Daboll was one of those who recruited him for the Tide), Shough chose Oregon after initially committing to North Carolina, even though he knew he’d sit behind Justin Herbert for at least a couple of seasons.

By his sophomore year in 2020, Shough started every game for the Ducks but didn’t finish his last two, ending his Covid-shortened season with a bowl-game loss against Iowa State (quarterbacked by Brock Purdy). With a chance to start for the Texas Tech Red Raiders in 2021, and to be a little closer to home, Shough moved South and started every game he was healthy for over three seasons (first for Matt Wells, then Joey McGuire). Not that there were a lot of them, as injuries piled up but kept extending his eligibility.

After three years he transferred one more time to Louisville, where he finished his time in college with career-highs under the guidance of head coach Jeff Brohm. 

Tyler Shough NFL Draft profile

• Age as of Week 1: 25 years old (26 in late September)
• Height: 6-foot-4 ⅞
• Weight: 219 pounds
• Hand size: 9 ¾
• Comparable body-type to: Sam Bradford    

CBS prospect ranking

Position: No. 8 QB  | Overall: No. 117

Consensus big board ranking (via NFL Mock Draft Database): No. 71 overall (No. 5 QB)

To check out all of CBSSports.com’s most recent mock drafts, click here.

NFL comparison: Nick Foles

Shough is good enough to play in the NFL. Is he good enough to start? That might depend on what’s asked of him, who he’s throwing to, and if he’s healthy. The same could have been said of Nick Foles; when he was pressed into action he won more often than lost when he had a good team around him, but when he started on bad teams he struggled to consistently do the heavy lifting. Both quarterbacks had capable arm talent, processing and size on their side.

2025 NFL Draft rumors: Many scouts have Louisville’s Tyler Shough as potential first-round QB prospect

Cody Benjamin

Tyler Shough scouting report

Accolades

• 2024: One of three players to win Comeback Player of the Year award
• 2024: Threw for 3,195 yards and 23 touchdowns compared to just six interceptions after three injury-shortened seasons

Strengths

• At 6-foot-5 and 224 pounds, some might say Shough is too tall or too lean, but he’s got clear visibility down the field and adequate size to handle the basic physicality of pro football. Coaches shouldn’t complain, especially since much of the 2025 class is a little short.
• Clean footwork with the ability to maneuver in and out of a pocket.
• Efficient, easy release. Coaches won’t have to worry about his mechanics. 
• Had just enough mobility to evade pressure, and kept his eyes downfield and didn’t leave pockets too early.
• Frequently and quickly made good reads and didn’t always shy away from tight-window throws in the short and intermediate areas. Typically solid at making throws with pressure imminent.
• Good accuracy and placement on short and intermediate throws in 2024, both from the pocket and on the move. His receivers didn’t have to adjust all the time to bring the ball in.
• There were numerous examples of Shough pushing the ball 50-plus yards in the air as well as targeting receivers along the sideline on far-side throws. His arm strength is actually toward the top of this year’s draft class, which might say more about the class than it does Shough.
• Especially good at taking care of the ball — throwing it away when no one was open or when a sack was coming, or taking a sack instead of chucking the ball into dangerous space.
• Mobile when he needed to be and was willing to run when the opportunity arose but preferred to pass.
• Smart, high-character player with determination and toughness that dates back to his childhood. 

Concerns

• Soon after the 2025 season starts, Shough will celebrate his 26th birthday, making him among the oldest prospects in the draft. Every other top-eight 2025 prospect is at least two years younger, and every 2024 rookie QB is at least roughly one year younger.
• Shough put some RPMs on his sidearm throws, and it could be those specific throws that earned him some “gunslinger” comparisons, but he typically threw with underwhelming velocity and a lot of air under his throws. Those throws could lead to interceptions in the pros as top defensive backs will know they could jump routes. Assume he’s a touch thrower.
• Not a major concern but Shough has work to do as an anticipatory thrower, a fairly concerning issue given he’s been in the college game for seven years.
• Had a completion rate of 36.7% on throws of 20-plus air yards with seven touchdowns, both the worst of any of the top quarterbacks in this draft.
• The stats aren’t great: Shough only topped 1,600 passing yards and 14 touchdowns once — in 2024 with Louisville. Obviously his injuries played a part since he sparsely played in 2021 and 2023. Still, his per-pass averages slid as he played at Texas Tech and then perked up at Louisville, but is average air yards per pass attempt was generally near 9.0, his touchdown rate was at least 5.9% in all but one season, and his interception rate improved to just 1.5% at Louisville. By comparison to others in the class, they’re not good numbers.
• Injuries have been a consistent part of his collegiate career. Shough broke his left collarbone in 2021 on a dive into the end zone; re-injured the shoulder and missed six games in 2022 when his left shoulder got driven into the ground on a run; then fractured his left fibula in 2023 when he — you guessed it — ran the ball on a scramble play. To his credit, he tried to stay in the game all three times but eventually relented or got pulled by trainers. It’s important to note that none of the injuries happened in the backfield. Still, Shough played eight or fewer games in all but one of his college seasons. 

Bottom line

Shough is a tall, poised quarterback who thrived in Louisville’s pro-style, up-tempo offense with elements of spread concepts. He’s got mature footwork and mechanics to help him make accurate throws to the short and intermediate levels. Shough’s experience has helped him develop very good pocket awareness as he’s not always rattled by a pass rush. His arm strength is good, his velocity isn’t, making him more of a touch thrower. Shough will be attractive as a backup NFL quarterback, but a team in salary-cap trouble (Saints, Browns) and/or with a veteran quarterback who might not be on the team in 2026 (Giants, Dolphins, Steelers) might see Shough as a potential answer to their problems.

What other draft experts say about Tyler Shough

Mike Renner: Tyler Shough is a unique quarterback prospect who’ll be 26 years old before he takes a snap in the NFL. He would have been in the NFL already had it not been for three straight seasons getting derailed by injury. Once he was fully healthy this past fall at Louisville, he showed outstanding arm talent and an ability to operate under pressure that few in the draft class can match.

Josh Edwards: Tyler Shough looks the part in the way he drops back and operates within the pocket. There are concerns with his injury history, and the deep ball consistency was not where it needed to be in my opinion. He does a tremendous job distributing the ball in the short-to-intermediate areas and has the pocket awareness to extend plays and pick up yardage with his feet. I think he can be a starter early in his career, but I do not see him becoming more than average at his position. 

2025 NFL Draft rumors: One head coach says he’d take Tyler Shough over Cam Ward as the No. 1 QB in this class

Jordan Dajani

Tyler Shough college stats

Tyler Shough 247Sports profile

High school: Hamilton (Chandler, Arizona)
Class: 2018
Player rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ (95)

• National: 94 | QB: 6 | AZ: 1

Check out Tyler Shough’s full 247Sports profile, here.

The 2025 NFL Draft will take place from April 24 to 26 at Lambeau Field in Green Bay, Wisconsin. More draft coverage can be found at CBSSports.com, including daily mock drafts, consensus prospect rankings, biggest team needs and more.