Dennis Allen said he’d give Spencer Rattler a long leash, and he was good on his word. The New Orleans Saints head coach stood by his rookie quarterback for two and a half games before deciding he’d seen enough. Trailing the Los Angeles Chargers 16-5 midway through the third quarter, Allen benched Rattler and told quarterbacks coach Andrew Janocko to warm up second-year backup Jake Haener.
“Look I just felt like we needed to do something to get something going offensively. We weren’t able to move the football. I felt we needed to do something to get some kind of spark,” Allen said after the game.
To that point, Rattler had led the offense for nine possessions, gaining 179 yards on 36 plays and managing just three points (on a 40-yard field goal). After switching to Haener for their last four drives, the offense gained 157 yards on 29 plays. Blake Grupe connected on another field goal (from 43 yards) but missed his third attempt (from 44 yards).
“I thought he did some good things,” Allen said of Haener. “Created a few plays. Took us down and gave us an opportunity to score some points. But ultimately we just have got to play better as a group.”
All told, Rattler completed 12 of his 24 passes for 156 yards, though he took 3 sacks for a loss of 16 yards. Haener went 9-of-17 for 122 yards and also lost 16 yards on a pair of sacks, but he made up for it by scrambling twice for a gain of 10 yards. So while the offense did get a small spark, it wasn’t enough to make a difference.
Allen acknowledged that Rattler had some shortcomings but he wasn’t willing to put all of the blame on the rookie: “I think there was a couple of reads it probably could’ve been better on. And look we certainly didn’t help him with a couple of drops and things of that nature, I think the margin for error right now is small. When we have opportunities to make plays, we have to be able to make the plays.”
Will Haener get another look? Maybe. Derek Carr is likely returning this week against the Carolina Panthers, but if he suffers a setback while recovering from injury the coaches could choose to stick with Haener rather than Rattler. It would be worth starting Haener to get a larger sample size to evaluate later, but at the end of the day the Saints must go with whoever gives them the best chance to win. They’re 2-6. They can’t assume these players and coaches will still be here next year. If this losing streak continues even bigger changes should be expected in the offseason.
