The New Orleans Saints have had nothing short of an up-and-down quarterback situation since the departure of Drew Brees, and Jameis Winston has not exactly fit the bill. The fact the Saints returned Winston on an amended deal with the likelihood he could be traded sooner rather than later doesn’t exactly reflect confidence, and, enter the Derek Carr experiment.
On the heels of that was the team selecting former Fresno State quarterback Jake Haener in the fourth round of the 2023 NFL Draft. While Haener may be viewed as more of a developmental prospect out of the gate, there is also a very real situation in which he could become one of the most reliable backups in the league or a long-term, high-floor starter.
There’s a reason the Saints traded up for him without choosing to wait. Head coach Dennis Allen said after the pick: “If the guy is there that you believe in, I think you go and pick that player. Even though I feel really good about where we are at at the quarterback position, so it wasn’t necessarily a position of need, but it’s the most important position on the field. If you’ve got a guy you feel good about, you want to get him in your building.”
While Haener should not be expected to start right away, he should be considered to be a player who has the ability to take the reins. At a bare minimum, he projects as something of a Jimmy Garoppolo type.
Despite being knocked for his frame at a minimal height of a flat 6-foot, Haener brings so much more to the table, as was reflected by his impeccable performance at the Senior Bowl in which he separated himself from every other quarterback at the event by a county mile. He was named MVP for the Senior Bowl game itself, following recent picks like Justin Herbert, Daniel Jones, and Dak Prescott.
Haener has shown the ability to evade pressure, make throws out of structure, and put proper arm strength on passes despite not having a Howitzer. He has a high level of mental processing and incredible football IQ, and can throw into impossibly tight windows down the sideline at all levels of the field.
I spoke with Haener ahead of the draft on some of the things he had been negatively graded for in scouting reports.
“Stetson (Bennett is) about two years older than I am,” Haener said. “I’m still 23 and there’s a lot of quarterbacks out there about 23, 24 at this point so age I don’t think is a big deal. And height, it is what it is. I can’t control that and there’s probably a lot of people saying that if I was one or two inches taller that I’d probably be going a lot higher than I’ll go but I can’t control that. I play bigger than I am and do everything that I can in my power to get guys fired up and play at a high level that I’m capable of.”
And he was confident in what he showed the scouts.
“I feel like people have gotten a pretty good judgment of what I can do and I think it will continue to get better,” Haener continued. “Here I feel like is kind of a rough estimate of what accuracy looks like. How the ball comes off my hand. I feel like people can see that I throw a nice ball and that I have the arm strength there. When I get with guys I’m comfortable with, a system I’m comfortable in, I will continue to get better.”
It will be interesting to see what Haener accomplishes in New Orleans, but there is no question that the sky is the limit. He’s landed in a great spot to continue developing his craft.
