The New Orleans Saints decided to name Jake Haener the initial backup quarterback for their Week 1 game against the Carolina Panthers. That will remain the same in Week 2, as Spencer Rattler is technically inactive, but he will remain in the “emergency” QB3 role for the Saints. He won’t get into the game unless both Haener and Derek Caarr are incapacitated.
This comes after a preseason where Rattler showed flashes of impressive play, but maybe not enough to lift himself over Haener, who had an extra season of experience with the team to work with Carr. If Carr goes down the coaches would rather put Haener into a game than the rookie.
Rattler joins six other Saints on the inactive list including Marshon Lattimore, A.T. Perry, Khalen Saunders, D’Marco Jackson, Jaylan Ford, and Dallin Holker, many of whom were on this week’s injury report. Lattimore is somewhat surprising given he played Week 1, but also not too shocking as he did not practice throughout the course of the week and was listed as questionable. He was pushing to play but the coaches want him to fully recover after pulling his hamstring last Sunday.
We will see how things progress for Rattler as the season goes along, and maybe he can win the QB2 spot from Haener at some point, but for now he will remain as the emergency backup.
