Rookie QB Tyler Shough's 2 TD runs lead Saints to a 24-20 upset of Buccaneers

TAMPA, Fla. (AP) — Tyler Shough has faced the two top teams in the NFC South and beat them both on the road.

The New Orleans Saints are more competitive than their record indicates.

Shough ran for two touchdowns and the Saints upset the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 24-20 on Sunday to tighten the division race. The rookie quarterback is 2-3 as a starter, with the other victory coming at Carolina.

“We can beat anybody. When we’re stalling out, we’re beating ourselves,” Shough said. “Knowing how close we have been in some of those losses, how you can flip it on its head and we produce those big plays, we’d get those wins.”

The lowly Saints (3-10), who were 8 1/2-point underdogs, frustrated Baker Mayfield and the Buccaneers (7-6) in a sloppy game mostly played through a driving storm.

The four-time defending division champion Bucs lost for the fourth time in five games and fell into a first-place tie with Carolina. The Bucs and Panthers face off twice in the final three games.

“It doesn't matter whether the team was 12-0 or 0-12, it's the NFL. You have to show up and make plays or the other team is gonna beat you,” Bucs coach Todd Bowles said.

After Chris Godwin Jr. couldn’t hold onto Mayfield’s pass on fourth-and-2 from the Saints 47, New Orleans drove for the go-ahead score.

Shough spun away from Logan Hall and Vita Vea in the backfield and scrambled 13 yards for a touchdown and a 24-17 lead near the midpoint of the fourth quarter.

The Buccaneers had a chance to tie it but Emeka Egbuka dropped Mayfield’s pass in the end zone, and they settled for a 37-yard field goal by Chase McLaughlin that cut the deficit to 24-20 with under five minutes remaining.

The Bucs had another chance in the final two minutes but Mayfield ran out of his early-season magic.

First, Deion Jones dropped a potential interception that would’ve set Tampa Bay up near its own 40. Instead, the Bucs got the ball after a punt at their 20 with 1:48 remaining and no timeouts.

Mayfield threw two incomplete passes, ran for 6 yards and threw a 3-yard pass to Cade Otton on fourth-and-4.

“I don’t disagree that it feels disjointed,” Godwin said of Tampa Bay's offense. “I can’t put my finger on exactly why. I feel like if we could, it would probably be easier to fix it. You can’t just look at this and go, ‘Oh, it’s whatever.’ It’s not whatever, we have to correct it. If we want to make a run at this thing, we’ve got to get it together and get it together fast.”

Shough finished with 144 yards passing and 55 rushing with one pick.

“Our guys have a lot of adversity this year and they’ve grown through this journey,” Saints coach Kellen Moore said.

Mayfield had 122 yards passing on a 14-of-30 afternoon with one interception.

Shough’s 34-yard TD run on the opening drive of the second half was his career score on the ground. It gave New Orleans a 14-10 lead.

Helped by a 29-yard pass-interference penalty on Jonas Sanker that wiped out an incomplete pass to Tez Johnson on third-and-10, the Buccaneers reclaimed the lead a few plays later.

Rachaad White ran 11, 7 and 5 yards. Then Sean Tucker ran for 13 yards and scored from the 1 to make it 17-14.

The Saints answered with a 30-yard field goal by Charlie Smyth that tied it at 17-all. Shough completed a pass on fourth-and-1 to the Buccaneers 5, but a penalty for illegal man downfield forced the Saints to settle for a field goal.

A 54-yard kickoff return by Mason Tipton to open the game set the Saints up at the Buccaneers 45. Devin Neal capped a quick drive with a 3-yard TD run for a 7-0 lead.

The Saints had just one touchdown in the first quarter this season before that score.

The Bucs went for a fourth-and-1 at the Saints 45 late in the first quarter but Carl Granderson stopped Bucky Irving for a 7-yard loss on a deep pitch.

Sean Tucker was stuffed on a fourth-and-1 at the Saints 49 late in the second quarter.

On the ensuing possession, New Orleans went for fourth-and-1 at the Buccaneers 42 and Neal was dropped for a 3-yard loss by Haason Reddick.

The Bucs finally converted on fourth-and-1 when Mayfield ran for 4 yards on the last drive of the first half, which ended with no points.

Undrafted rookie Benjamin Chukwama made his first NFL start for the Buccaneers, filling in for All-Pro left tackle Tristan Wirfs.

Saints: RB Alvin Kamara (knee, ankle), T Taliese Fuaga (ankle), S Justin Reid (knee) were inactive.

Buccaneers: LG Ben Bredeson left in the second quarter with a knee injury. ... DB Tykee Smith exited late in the first half with a stinger. ... Reddick left with an ankle injury. ... Wirfs (oblique), WR Mike Evans (clavicle), RG Luke Haggard (shoulder) and CB Benjamin Morrison (hamstring) were inactive.

Saints: Host Carolina next Sunday.

Buccaneers: Host Atlanta on Thursday night.

AP NFL: https://apnews.com/hub/NFL

New Orleans Saints quarterback Tyler Shough (6) is sacked by Tampa Bay Buccaneers defensive tackle Greg Gaines and linebacker Haason Reddick, left, in the first half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield (6) passes under pressure from New Orleans Saints defensive tackle Bryan Bresee (90) in the first half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Jason Behnken)

Tampa Bay Buccaneers safety Christian Izien (29) celebrates after stopping the New Orleans Saints on fourth down in the first half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Jason Behnken)

New Orleans Saints quarterback Tyler Shough (6) is sacked by Tampa Bay Buccaneers linebacker Chris Braswell (43) in the first half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

New Orleans Saints quarterback Tyler Shough (6) carries for a touchdown against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

Tampa Bay Buccaneers running back Bucky Irving (7) carries against the New Orleans Saints in the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Jason Behnken)

Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Baker Mayfield (6) appeals to down judge Andy Warner (64) for a pass interference call in the second half of an NFL football game against the New Orleans Saints, Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Jason Behnken)

Tampa Bay Buccaneers running back Bucky Irving (7) carries against New Orleans Saints safety Jordan Howden (31) in the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Jason Behnken)

New Orleans Saints quarterback Tyler Shough (6) carries for a touchdown past Tampa Bay Buccaneers safety Rashad Wisdom (38) in the second half of an NFL football game, Sunday, Dec. 7, 2025, in Tampa, Fla. (AP Photo/Chris O'Meara)

BERLIN (AP) — Jürgen Habermas, whose work on communication, rationality and sociology made him one of the world’s most influential philosophers and a key intellectual figure in his native Germany, has died. He was 96.

Habermas’ publisher, Suhrkamp, said he died on Saturday in Starnberg, near Munich.

Habermas frequently weighed in on political matters over several decades. His extensive writing crossed the boundaries of academic and philosophical disciplines, providing a vision of modern society and social interaction. His best-known works included the two-volume “Theory of Communicative Action.”

Habermas, who was 15 at the time of Nazi Germany’s defeat, later recalled the dawn of a new era in 1945 and his coming to terms with the reality of Nazi crimes as something without which he wouldn’t have found his way into philosophy and social theory. He recalled that “you saw suddenly that it was a politically criminal system in which you had lived.”

He had an ambivalent relationship with the left-wing student movement of the late 1960s in Germany and beyond, engaging with it but also warning at the time against the danger of what he called “left-wing fascism” — a reaction to a firebrand speech by a student leader that he later said was “slightly out of place.” He would later recognize the movement as having driven a “fundamental liberalization” of German society.

In the 1980s, Habermas was a prominent figure in the so-called Historians’ Dispute, in which Berlin historian Ernst Nolte and others called for a new perspective on the Third Reich and German identity. They tended to compare what happened under Adolf Hitler to atrocities carried out by other governments, such as the deaths of millions in the Soviet Union under Stalin. Habermas and other opponents contended that the conservative historians were trying to lessen the magnitude of Nazi crimes through such comparisons.

Habermas supported the rise to power of center-left Chancellor Gerhard Schröder in 1998. He was critical of the “technocratic” approach and perceived lack of political vision of Schröder’s conservative successor, Angela Merkel, complaining in 2016 of the paralyzing effects on public opinion of “the foam blanket of Merkel’s policy of sending people to sleep.”

He was particularly critical of the “limited interest” shown by German politicians, business leaders and media in “shaping a politically effective Europe.” In 2017, he praised newly elected French President Emmanuel Macron for laying out of plans for European reform, saying that “the way he speaks about Europe makes a difference.”

Habermas was born on June 18, 1929, in Duesseldorf and grew up in nearby Gummersbach, where his father headed the local chamber of commerce. He became a member of the Deutsches Jungvolk, a section of the Hitler Youth for younger boys, at 10.

He was born with a cleft palate that required repeated operations as a child, an experience that helped inform his later thinking about language.

Habermas said he had experienced the importance of spoken language as “a layer of commonality without which we as individuals cannot exist” and recalled struggling to make himself understood. He also spoke of the “superiority of the written word,” and said that “the written form conceals the flaws of the oral.”

His wife, Ute Habermas-Wesselhoeft, died last year. The couple had three children: Tilmann; Rebekka, who died in 2023; and Judith.

FILE - In this Nov. 7, 2006 photo German philosopher Juergen Habermas is seen in Koenigswinter near Bonn, Germany. (AP Photo/Hermann J. Knippertz, File)