Canal Street Chronicles
When head coach Kellen Moore named QB Spencer Rattler the starter, one of the main points that Moore spoke about was that the QB competition would not continue in the season. Making sure to say this makes sense so that the team can rally behind one guy, but in reality, a competition is still happening. Each of Spencer Rattler’s performances will be evaluated and compared against the potential of starting rookie second-round pick Tyler Shough. The New Orleans Saints are trying to find their next franchise QB, and wasting time is not an option. With this in mind, I did a bit of my own evaluating of Rattler and looked at all of his throws this past Sunday against the Arizona Cardinals.
Here is what I noticed.
One of the stories of the game was Spencer Rattler not throwing deep. Besides the interception that got called back, which I’ll get to later, Rattler continued to throw short and slowly drive. The main question, though, was whether this was the play calling or Rattler not being able to push down the field. At least in the first half, it looks like the play calling may have been the reason. This seemed to be a clear game plan by Kellen Moore to get the offense and Rattler in a rhythm to start the game, so later they can open up the playbook a bit more. Doing this could suppress the potential big plays that Rattler could make, but it also makes the young QB more comfortable for the rest of the game. This is precisely what happened, and Rattler did really well, hitting the open guys in the first half, but the second half is where the issues were glaring.
I mentioned before that I would talk about the near interception that Rattler had in the first half. This play looked like a bad throw, but it actually was a miscommunication between Rattler and his WR. On this play, Shaheed faked that he was going inside, but stayed on the outside. The issue was that Rattler threw to the inside, thinking Shaheed was going there. A play like this goes down to communication, but it could have hurt the confidence of Rattler for the rest of the game.
After a conservative first half, Kellen Moore clearly opened up the playbook more and dialed up some potential big plays. The first play came from first down, an incomplete short pass to Juwan Johnson with 9:09 left in the third quarter. The pocket was very clean (besides a falling defensive lineman to the right of Rattler), and Rattler decided to throw quick to Johnson. If he looked to the left of the field, Chris Olave was going to be open up the sideline for a deep touchdown. The only thing that could have been an issue was Budda Baker lurking in the back, but his attention was on Rasheed Shaheed, who was...
