The New Orleans Saints will start rookie quarterback Spencer Rattler in Sunday’s game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, coach Dennis Allen said Wednesday.
Rattler will start in place of the injured Derek Carr, who strained his tilt against the Kansas City Chiefs on Monday. Allen said Carr’s return would be a “week-to-week” decision and that Carr would retain his starting job when healthy.
“Overall, I think he’s fine, but I think he’s disappointed that he can’t be here,” Allen said. “I’m a person who has never missed a lot of time, and I’m a person who hates losing a lot of time, so I think that’s frustrating.”
The Saints play two games in five days. Sunday against Tampa Bay, and Oct. 17 against the Denver Broncos on “Thursday Night Football.”
Rattler, a 2024 fifth-round draft pick out of South Carolina, beat out second-year player Jake Haener for the starting job, but Allen declined to be specific about why the team chose to go with the rookie.
“We talked about it a lot internally and we felt like in this particular game, he was going to give us the best chance to win,” Allen said. “Both he and Jake have been working hard to become starters. That was kind of the conversation we had at the beginning of the year that Jake was going to be the starter. … That was absolutely true. It was basically going to be kind of a day-to-day deal and we “We felt this would give us the best option for this game.”
The Saints’ offensive line has been wracked by injuries over the past few weeks, with their starting center and right guard currently out of the lineup. The Saints had Connor McGovern take snaps at center against the Chiefs after acquiring him from the Jets’ practice squad last week, moved Landon Young from tackle to guard and placed Lucas Patrick at both center and guard.
When asked if the current state of the offensive line played a part in his decision, Allen said Rattler’s ability to move around the pocket and scramble was “part of it.”
“A lot of factors went into it,” Allen said. “Obviously we felt he had some mobility.”
Allen said Rattler has been through a lot during his time at Oklahoma and South Carolina and has experience as a starter even though he has yet to experience an NFL snap.
“He was tested under fire and came out on the other end,” Allen said. “We’re excited about him. We’re excited about him playing, and it’s going to be our duty as coaches to put him in the best position to be successful.”
The Saints listed both Rattler and Haener as the top two quarterbacks at the start of the season, and Allen said he wants that competition to continue throughout the season. Rattler has been inactive thus far as the team’s emergency third quarterback through five games, while Haener came in to replace Carr in the blowout win and loss to the Chiefs.
Allen said he hasn’t decided which quarterback will be the starter if Carr misses time until this week.
“We knew we had some decisions to make if Derek missed time,” Allen said. “So in that respect, kindness was always on our minds, but I don’t think the decision was made until we got here and really started talking about it.”
Allen said their philosophy is to be patient with the Rattler. Although he acknowledged that starting out as a rookie comes with its challenges.
“I think we should let him go there and play.” Allen said. “We’re not going into this game saying, ‘You make a mistake and we’ll pull you.’ He’s going to play and lead the team. I think we’ll go from there.”
He later added: “The most important thing is that I don’t want to go into this like it’s this big ordeal. He’s the next guy. Get in there and have fun, have fun, have fun and get a chance to do what you want to do. I think sometimes you get too carried away. “I think by making a big deal out of it, we’re going to look at what he needs to know and then we’ll let him go out and play.”
Through three preseason appearances, Rattler has completed 20 of 38 pass attempts (52.6%) for 202 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions, rushing seven times for 26 yards and forcing one fumble.
