New Orleans Saints rookie receiver Barion Brown had a rough second quarter against the Cleveland Browns when he tried to make something happen on a punt return and wound up coughing up the ball after reversing field twice in search of a lane.
That mistake gave Cleveland the ball at the Saints’ 19-yard line and put the Browns in position to cash in during a first half that was already moving at a crawl.
But what happened next showed how Tyler Shough handled the moment. After the play, the Saints quarterback found Brown on the bench, and NFL cameras and microphones picked up the full exchange.
“Hey, the best part about it is you get to do it again, you get to go out there and play again,” Shough told Brown. “It’s all good.
Shoot your shot, get your yards, get down. We’ve all fumbled before, you know what I’m saying?
You’ll learn from it, and it ain’t going to happen again. Keep your energy, keep your juice, because we’re going to need you on another play.”
He kept going, too: “We’ve got 2-minute drill coming up, and then we’ve got the rest of the game. You can be mad about it later, but right now, how you talk to yourself matters. After the game, be pissed, but right now, who cares?”
The Saints defense bailed out the offense by delivering a goal-line stand, wiping away the damage from the turnover.
And Brown answered back later. He put together a pair of big returns, including a 20-yard punt return inside the final two minutes of regulation that helped set up the short field the Saints turned into a go-ahead touchdown.
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