For nearly 20 years, the Saints’ pregame huddle has belonged to one of two voices. That changes Saturday.
When New Orleans opens its preseason against the Jacksonville Jaguars, Tyler Shough will be the one speaking in the south end zone before warmups, taking over a role that Drew Brees and Demario Davis made into one of the team’s defining rituals. The Saints’ second-year quarterback said Wednesday he intends to handle the job every game.
“That’s my plan, to be out there every game, and do it,” he said.
The assignment carries real weight inside the Saints’ locker room. It is more than a quick pump-up speech.
It is the final word before kickoff, the moment when one player sets the emotional temperature for everyone else. Since Sean Payton arrived in 2006, the huddle has grown into a game-day fixture, right alongside the Who Dat chant, and it became such a visible part of the Saints’ 2009 Super Bowl run that team officials eventually had to limit outside video crews from crowding in.
Deep snapper and captain Zach Wood, one of the few players still around from Brees’ era, called it a meaningful piece of Saints culture.
“It’s tradition, and it’s an important thing,” he said. “It’s just a thing that we do here. Pregame, give the right speech, say the right words, get everybody hyped up.”
Shough becomes only the seventh player to lead the pregame huddle since the tradition started. Joe Horn and Reggie Bush had the job in 2006.
Brees took it in 2007 and kept it for years before handing it to Davis after his retirement in 2020. Outside of a one-game cameo last season from Foster Moreau and Taysom Hill, those two have owned the role since 2007.
Shough said he understands what comes with it.
“That’s why I have a reverence and respect for (the role), and want to go about it the right way,” he said. “More than anything, it’s about earning the respect of everybody and earning that role. And I feel like I have done it in an authentic way.”
Brees and Davis approached the job very differently. Brees treated the speech like a project, crafting a new message each year and then repeating it all season.
He pulled ideas from movies, books and poetry. In 2008, he drew from “300” and turned “This is Sparta” into “This is New Orleans.”
The next two years, he leaned on military-style cadence. The famous 2009 chant grew out of a USO Tour visit to a U.S.
Marine base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where Brees heard a cadence during morning workouts and brought it back: “One, two, win for you. Three, four, win some more…” His 2010 version, “ When I say 1, you say 2.
When I say win, you say for you. ... 1!
2! Win!
For you!” also came from the military.
“(The military) is where a lot the inspiration for some of our pregame chants came from,” Brees said last week at his Hall of Fame press conference in Canton, Ohio. “When I heard that one (in 2009), I said, I’m taking this back for my team. And sure enough, we go on to win the Super Bowl, so that one will live forever.”
Davis brought a different energy to the middle of the huddle. He called it “sacred ground” and embraced the weekly responsibility. Instead of sticking to one script, he adjusted from game to game and often spoke off the cuff, shaping his message around the opponent or whatever felt right in the moment.
"That's a special moment for us (the players), so I knew (the role) was important," Davis said in 2019. “But I felt like I could do it, too.”
Shough enters the role at 26, younger and less experienced than the quarterbacks who held it before him. Brees was 28 and already a two-time Pro Bowler when he took over in 2007.
Davis was 31 and in his ninth NFL season when he stepped in. Shough, though, has the backing of teammates who see him as the right voice for the job.
“Obviously, we have a few leaders on the team, but I think whoever gets that role is the leader of leaders, the one running show,” Wood said. “And Tyler is definitely that guy.”
Chase Young was just as direct.
“He’s not just anybody. He’s it.
He’s Tyler (expletive) Shough. We have full belief in him.
He’s the guy to lead the troops. We love our QB1.
He’s that guy, and he’ll be ready (for the role).”
Shough said Davis did not hand him the job before leaving for the New York Jets in free agency, and there was no team vote. He sees it as part of the quarterback’s job description.
“It’s just natural,” he said.
He also said he has not settled on exactly how he will handle the speeches yet. He plans to vary them from week to week, but Saturday will be the first test. For now, he is focused less on creating a signature and more on delivering something that fits the moment.
“It's going to be nowhere near the level of DeMario and them, especially right off the bat,” he said. “I think it will depend upon the vibe of that week or what team we're playing or what the message is or what hits my brain.
I think that would be how I would operate about that. Obviously, maybe Year 10, the way Drew was doing it, I think I may have a certain message, but I think that comes with time and experience as well.
My main goal is, I want to be able to convey my message and get everybody on the same page and motivated to go. I feel really prepared for it.”
The Saints are moving on to a new voice in a familiar spot, and Shough knows the standard he’s stepping into.
“That’s why I have a reverence and respect for (the role), and want to go about it the right way,” he said. “I feel like I have done it in an authentic way and want to go continue to earn it. I feel really prepared for it.”
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