Spencer Rattler could be the Saints’ starting quarterback soon, and here’s why

Derek Carr’s high floor and low ceiling may land Rattler the starting job sooner rather than later.

Derek Carr is an ordinary franchise quarterback, and that’s an interesting delineation in today’s NFL. Carr, the 2014 second-round pick of the Raiders who signed a four-year, $150 million contract with the Saints in March 2023, is that high-floor, low-ceiling quarterback who can keep you consistent, but there are few alpha traits.

What you need to watch out for with a player like Carr is quarterback purgatory, where you’re always in the fight, but you’re short a knockout punch; where everything has to be near-perfect around him, or it might not ever be great.

It’s not the worst position to be in, but it’s hardly the best.

The Saints obviously believe in Carr in the near term, but coming off a 9-8 season in which Carr completed 68.4% of his passes for 3,878 yards, 25 touchdowns, eight interceptions, and a passer rating of 97.7 tells the story. New offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak may want more from his quarterback, and he may not get it.

Recently, I was texting with a high-level quarterback analyst who knows more about the position than I do, and he asked me out of the blue what I thought of Carr. My response:

I thought he was an underrated deep passer a couple of years ago. Still has decent juice to zip the ball into tight windows. He can also take a bit off to make touch throws. His mechanics suffer too often when he’s pressured. Not a natural re-adjuster. If you limit him from stepping up in the pocket, it’s a problem. Not a great boot thrower. Pretty good at working around blitzes.

I think he’s a better than average bridge quarterback if he’s in a system tailored to his attributes, but he needs that. He really needs to play the hits.

My friend agreed, and added that Carr doesn’t always see things as well as he should, which makes him a cautious thrower.

So that’s what the Saints already have at quarterback. With the 151st overall pick in the fifth round of the 2024 draft, the Saints may have given a glimpse of what could be with the selection of South Carolina quarterback Spencer Rattler. Few expected Rattler to be a fifth-round guy in the end, and Rattler went through some things during (and leading to) his collegiate career.

The tl;dr version:

• A four- to five-star prospect who starred in a Peter Berg-directed Netflix documentary called QB1: Beyond the Lights, which reportedly stuck in the craws of several NFL shot-callers ever since;
• Was suspended in his final high school season for a code of conduct violation;
• Committed to Lincoln Riley’s Oklahoma Sooners for the 2019 season, and became the Sooners’ starter in 2020;
• Was a Heisman favorite coming into the 2021 season, but was benched in favor of Caleb Williams (yes, THAT Caleb WIlliams), and transferred to South Carolina after the 2021 season;
• Threw 18 touchdowns and 12 interceptions in his first season with the Gamecocks, but went OFF late in the season against Tennessee – six of his touchdown passes came in that game;
• Returned to South Carolina for the 2023 season, and looked like a more comfortable quarterback despite a situation around him that was less than optimal.

Now, Mr. YOLO has the opportunity to become the Saints’ starting quarterback over time. What makes us think that this could happen sooner than later?

Rattler can excel outside of structure, and outside the pocket.

He really can, and that’s a two-part story: He excelled outside of structure because he wanted to, and he excelled outside of structure because he had to. South Carolina’s offensive line in 2023 was one of the worst I’ve seen in recent years.

Rattler was instructed to roll outside the pocket in Dowell Loggains’ offense both as a runner and a passer; for every desperation scramble last season, there was a designed boot concept or QB run that made the offense hum more than it would otherwise. His familiarity with those ideas has him ahead of the game when it comes to out-of-pocket mechanics.

Most of Rattler’s 17 explosive runs last season were of the scrambling variety, but occasionally, the call was for Rattler to find the opening and work it. The Saints have been far too prone to the whole “Taysom Hill package” thing for far too long; perhaps runs like this 16-yarder against Clemson could have them thinking about a different mobile quarterback.

We’ve already discussed Carr’s relative limitations outside the pocket. Last season, per Sports Info Solutions, Carr ranked 23rd in the NFL with 59 passing attempts outside the pocket. He completed 27 of those attempts for 272 yards, 181 air yards, one touchdown, one interception, and a passer rating of 67.3 – which ranked 32nd among quarterbacks who had at least 25 throws outside the pocket.

SiS had Rattler with 84 attempts outside the pocket last season. He completed 48 of those attempts for 514 yards, 308 air yards, five touchdowns, no interceptions, and an NFL passer rating of 95.0. Rattler wasn’t perfect outside the pocket, but he was far more comfortable in those instances than Carr was, and as Klint Kubiak’s father Gary is one of the NFL’s all-time boot evangelists, that could be a big deal.

Rattler has more answers under pressure.

Carr’s “in the box” abilities are present in his performance under pressure – last season, per Pro Football Focus, he completed 70 of 143 passes when pressured for 877 yards, two touchdowns, three interceptions, and a passer rating of 64.4. Rattler, behind THAT offensive line, completed 57 of 121 passes for 855 yards, five touchdowns, five interceptions, and a passer rating of 67.3. Both quarterbacks were effective against the blitz – Carr completed 121 of 187 passes when blitzed for 1,414 yards, 10 touchdowns, four interceptions, and a passer rating of 95.9. Rattler completed 126 of 184 passes when blitzed for 1,478 yards, 11 touchdowns, two interceptions, and a passer rating of 108.0.

Rattler’s interceptions under pressure have sprung from the fact that his arm is more equipped for timing-based deep passes than an ability to Howitzer his way out of trouble.

When Rattler had the ability to use his pocket movement skills, things tended to go quite a bit more smoothly.

What kind of offense does Klint Kubiak intend to run?

We don’t know a ton about this yet; Kubiak’s only NFL offensive coordinator experience before his current position was with the 2021 Vikings. He spent last season as the 49ers’ passing game coordinator, so he certainly picked up quite a few things from Kyle Shanahan about tying the run and pass games together and how to be diabolical with pre-snap motion.

“We’ve installed a lot offensively,” Saints head coach Dennis Allen said on June 17 of Kubiak’s offense. “A lot of moving parts, a lot of motions, so it’s been challenging both from an offensive standpoint of our guys learning a new offense, but it’s also been challenging from a defensive standpoint seeing a lot of different looks and a lot of different plays.

“A guy like (linebacker) Demario Davis can’t come out here and just play the same plays he’s been playing for the last six or seven years, or whatever the case may be. So, it’s causing everybody to have to really work. It’s causing us as a defensive staff to have to go in and talk about, ‘Okay, how do we handle some of these things that we’re seeing?’ I think it’s been great work for all of us.”

And in that regard, it gives everyone a clean slate. Carr was quite good with pre-snap motion last season – 102 of 144 for 1,124 yards, 515 air yards, seven touchdowns, one interception, and a passer rating of 106.9.

Rattler, though? He completed 109 of 152 passes with motion for 1,122 yards, 353 air yards, eight touchdowns, no interceptions, and a passer rating of 110.1. Most of South Carolina’s motions were of the subtler variety, so Rattler didn’t always get the full benefit of defensive displacement that radical motion can generate in the right situations.

Spencer Rattler’s future is all about raising the ceiling.

At the 2024 scouting combine, I asked Rattler for his favorite college play.

“Den Dozer Right Strong Cozy 73 Y IHOP Swiss. Just a great play to draw up. It gets really intricate when you break it down. You’ve got your yes-or-no read, an alert to the cornerback, a little pivot route to the backside Cover-2, in-cut, influence read.”

Best version of that?

“Florida week.”

With the help of SB Nation’s own Mark Schofield, we got close to the ideal version – Rattler’s 24-yard pass to O’Mega Blake with 10:33 left in the fourth quarter. Blake hit the in-cut front-side against Florida’s Cover-3, the yes-or-no read was the go/flat, and the alert to the cornerback was which route he took to that side. There’s not every element here — it’s not Cover-2, for example — but it’s a nice insight into everything a quarterback has to read right away.

The Saints have one devil they know, and one they’re still learning about the other one. They can stick with Derek Carr’s standard means of production, and in the short term, they probably will. But there will inevitably and invariably come a time when something more “interesting” is required of their quarterback, and it may be then that Rattler gets his shot. There’s the preseason to build on, and we’ll see what happens from there.

But when you go under the hood, the specter of a fifth-round quarterback usurping a guy with $100 million guaranteed in his current contract might not be as crazy as it seems.