Saints rookie Spencer Rattler to start at QB vs. Buccaneers

METAIRIE, La. — The New Orleans Saints will start rookie quarterback Spencer Rattler against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday, coach Dennis Allen said Wednesday.

Rattler will start in place of injured Derek Carr, who strained his oblique 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 doing OK, and yet I think he’s disappointed that he can’t be out here,” Allen said. “He’s a guy that hasn’t missed a lot of time, doesn’t like to miss a lot of time, so I think he’s frustrated with that part.”

The Saints play two games in five days — Sunday against Tampa Bay and then Oct. 17 against the Denver Broncos on “Thursday Night Football.”

Rattler, a 2024 fifth-round draft pick out of South Carolina, won the starting job over second-year player Jake Haener, but Allen declined to go into specifics about why the team chose to go with the rookie.

“We just internally talked a lot about it and felt like in this particular game, that he was going to give us the best chance to win,” Allen said. “Both him and Jake both have been practicing extremely hard, preparing to be the starter. It was kind of the conversation that we had at the beginning of the year that Jake would be the No. 2 to start. … It was really basically going to be kind of a week-to-week deal and we just felt like this was, for this game, going to give us the best option.”

The Saints’ offensive line has been shuffled around for the past several weeks because of injuries, and their starting center and right guard are currently out of the lineup. The Saints had Connor McGovern take snaps at center against the Chiefs after signing him off the Jets‘ practice squad last week, moved Landon Young from tackle to guard and put Lucas Patrick at both center and guard.

Allen said Rattler’s ability to move around the pocket and scramble was “part of it” when asked if the current state of the offensive line factored into his decision.

“There were a lot of factors that go into it,” Allen said. “Certainly we felt like he’s got some mobility.”

Allen said Rattler went through a lot during his time at Oklahoma and South Carolina, and that he has experience as a starter, even though he hasn’t had the NFL snaps yet.

“He’s been tested in the fire and he’s come out on the other end,” Allen said. “We’re excited about him. We’re looking forward to watching him play, and it’s going to be incumbent upon us as coaches to put him in the best position to be successful.”

The Saints listed both Rattler and Haener as the No. 2 quarterback when the season began, and Allen said he wanted the competition to continue throughout the season. Rattler has been inactive so far as the team’s emergency third quarterback through five games, and Haener has come in for Carr in blowout wins and in the loss to the Chiefs.

Allen said they didn’t make the decision about which quarterback would be the starter if Carr missed time until this week.

“We knew that if and when Derek ever had to miss a time, then we’d have to make some decisions,” Allen said. “So I think in that regard, it’s always kind been in the back of our mind, but yet there was no decision made until we got in here and really started talking about it.”

Allen said their philosophy was to be patient with Rattler, although he acknowledged starting a rookie comes with challenges.

“Look, I think you got to let the guy go in there and play,” Allen said. “We’re not going into this game saying, ‘You make a mistake, we’re going to pull you.’ He’s going to play. He’s going to start and lead the team. I think we’ll go from there.”

He later added: “The biggest thing, you don’t want to go into this thing like it’s this major ordeal. He’s the next man up. Get an opportunity to go in and play, go play and have fun, do what you’ve been trained to do. I think sometimes you can make too big a deal of it and create more of an issue than you really need to. So, we’ll go through the things that he needs to know. We’ll get him prepared and then we’ll let him go out there and play.”

During three preseason appearances, Rattler completed 20 of 38 pass attempts (52.6%) for 202 yards, one touchdown and no interceptions while rushing seven times for 26 yards and a lost fumble.