METAIRIE, La. — The New Orleans Saints began OTAs last week with a rare sight: A quarterback competition.
Second-year quarterback Spencer Rattler and rookie quarterback Tyler Shough were split off in sections of the team’s indoor practice facility. On Thursday, Rattler worked with the first-team offense and Shough with the second-team. Third-year quarterback Jake Haener, who is dealing with an oblique strain, watched from the side.
Both quarterbacks had their highs and lows in practice, with Shough’s best throw coming on a deep pass to wide receiver Rashid Shaheed. But they won’t name a starting quarterback coming out of a practice in May — the team intends for that to come later.
Saints coach Kellen Moore said every quarterback got their turn with the first-team offense in Week 1 of OTAs last week, including Haener before his oblique injury. That rotation will continue throughout the summer.
“I don’t want them to get into [a state] where they’re always looking at who’s in, who’s out,” Moore said.
Because quarterback Derek Carr retired on May 10, the Saints’ starting quarterback spot is up for grabs for the second time in the last 20-plus years. The other time was when Jameis Winston and Taysom Hill competed to be Drew Brees’ successor after Brees retired in 2021.
While that competition featured two quarterbacks with several years of NFL experience, this is new territory for the Saints: four young players, two of whom have a combined seven NFL starts and no professional wins. Shough, Rattler and Haener, along with undrafted rookie free agent Hunter Dekkers, who the team picked up on May 13, will spend their summer trying to obtain one of the two (or three) spots in the quarterback room.
“It’s been really good. Yeah, it’s been a lot of fun. I mean, we’re all around the same age, speak the same language,” Shough said. “We’ve all been around each other. So I think that’s been the fun part, just learning this offense together, bouncing ideas off of each other and competing.”
This early in the offseason, the Saints want their quarterbacks — all of whom are 26 or younger — to grasp new concepts, get in a rhythm running the offense and ease into the idea of a competition with the limited reps they’re allowed on the field.
It’s what Saints offensive coordinator Doug Nussmeier calls “the big picture view.”
“What we try and do is start from a 30,000-foot view so to say, and we try and just continue to bring it down and down and down,” Nussmeier said. “You try and start from the big picture and get them to understand the big picture and the why of how we want to do what we want to do. ‘OK, here’s what we want it to look like, here’s the starting point and now we work through each and every step to get to where we want to be.'”
Rattler went 0-6 as a starter last year from Weeks 6 to 8 and Weeks 15 to 17 while Carr dealt with injuries. He lost his job temporarily to Haener and got it back after Haener was pulled as a starter following one half of a game against the Washington Commanders in Week 14.
“I think last year was not a normal situation, as you guys know, walking into, but learned that I can get through adversity, I could play at this level and felt good about it, want to improve and build on that,” Rattler said.
Moore said he recently told the team that everyone has a “blank slate” going into this offseason. Whatever happened last year doesn’t matter anymore, he said.
Does that mean that any quarterback could win the job? In reality, it’s more complicated. The Saints selected Shough with their second-round pick, a sign they likely see him as their quarterback of the future, if not this season, then soon.
The competition has largely been painted as a two-man race between Shough and Rattler, who was a fifth-round pick last year and comes into this competition as the most experienced man in the group.
Haener acknowledged that fact last week but said he wasn’t bothered by it. He’s already dealt with competition for the backup spot after they drafted Rattler just one year after Haener was taken in the fourth round of the 2023 draft.
“I’ve been the underdog at every stage, everywhere I’ve been, so it’s nothing new to me. Just go do my thing,” Haener said.
But each quarterback has his own hurdles to clear before the true competition can start. Shough, who played seven years in college at Oregon, Texas Tech and Louisville, said he’s trying to nail down the verbiage and unlearn “five or six offenses,” while learning to be quick and concise in and out of the huddle.
Haener, who said he has played in “nine systems in seven years,” not only has to unlearn old offenses as well, but keep pace in a race where he’s already a step behind due to being sidelined for several weeks with an injury.
Rattler said he wants to improve off a rookie season that saw his first coach fired, the starting quarterback injured and injuries at multiple positions. He said he already feels more confident than he did at this point last year.
“I feel like I’ve always been pretty confident, even if it’s up and down, you got to maintain that confidence, but I guess you could say I’m a little more comfortable now going into year two,” Rattler said. “Obviously nowhere near where I want to be, but I feel good right now.”
But whether that confidence translates into a starting job for Rattler, Shough or Haener will likely have to wait several months, through training camp and after the conclusion of the team’s preseason games.
Right now, it’s “big picture” time for the young quarterback room.
“You got to go in there and operate. You got a taste of that in [rookie] mini camp. You got brand new faces, the expectations, you got to go out there and perform and I love it,” Shough said. ” … It’s really, really cool to come in and operate. I feel a lot more prepared being kind of an older rookie coming in, not being as nervous to develop those relationships, but knowing that’s my whole job is to continue to earn my role and do everything I can.”
