If Spencer Rattler bothered to glance at the stands as he walked into the visitors’ tunnel two weeks ago, he’d have noticed a Seattle Seahawks fan holding up a sign that taunted the New Orleans Saints — and included a message just for him.
“0-8 NFL CAREER QB,” the top line of the cardboard read.
Rattler’s well aware of the rhetoric. Last week, the 25-year-old became the ninth quarterback in NFL history to lose his first 10 starts. And these days, Rattler seemingly can’t be mentioned without that record thrown in his face. Barstool Sports’ popular “Pardon My Take” podcast did a segment about “the illustrious 0-10 club” before Rattler officially joined. Social media comments, as always, can be a cesspool.
“It is what it is,” Rattler said. “When you’re the quarterback, it’s going to be part of the territory.”
Each day, Rattler arrives as early as two hours before the Saints’ 8 a.m. team meeting to review that week’s game plan and start the necessary prep it takes to be an NFL quarterback. And each week, those efforts have yet to be enough.
It can make for a confounding conundrum, especially in Rattler’s case. This season, the Saints do not appear to be losing games because of Rattler’s play. In his second year, the quarterback has shown noticeable improvement. His completion percentage is 10 points higher than his rookie year. His turnover rate has cut down dramatically. And for all the strides he’s made in the pass game, he has become one of the more efficient running quarterbacks.
But 0-10 is still 0-10.
Rattler’s best bet to get a win may come Sunday: The Saints are favored over the New York Giants, marking the first time in Rattler’s 11 starts he’ll go into a game as a favorite.
Rattler, too, is entering a pivotal stretch. The Giants game begins a three-week slate against opponents who finished last in their divisions a year ago. Coach Kellen Moore has publicly backed Rattler and said he doesn’t want his quarterback looking over his shoulder, but the reality is second-round rookie Tyler Shough remains waiting in the wings. If Rattler cannot win sometime soon, then how much longer will the Saints be willing to throw him out there before determining a change is necessary?
If Rattler hasn’t played poorly enough to cost the Saints games, there’s also an argument to be made that he hasn’t played well enough to be the main reason to win them, either. Through the first four games, the 2024 fifth-round pick has had some glaring misses on plays the quarterback admitted he needed to make.
As he stood at a lectern this week, Rattler was adamant the losses haven’t started to take their toll. If there is pressure that increases by the week, the quarterback has refused to acknowledge it. “I feel like I’m not playing losing football,” he said, adding he’s only focused on the future — not the past.
At one point, he pushed his left hand to the side and used his right to forge ahead.
“You can’t trip over it,” Rattler said.
The weight of the situation may be heavier than Rattler lets on. He is, after all, in rare company. Of the nine quarterbacks to lose their first 10 starts, three — DeShone Kizer, Zach Mettenberger and Brodie Croyle — never won a game at all. They serve as a reminder that nothing is guaranteed. This moment is Rattler’s chance. Some don’t ever get another shot.
Warren Moon knows how hard losing can be. Before he was a Hall of Famer, before he’d make nine Pro Bowls and led the NFL in passing, Moon was once like Rattler. Ten starts. Ten losses.
“When it got to four or five games, you start to wonder, ‘Okay, what’s going on here? When are we going to turn one of these losses into a win?’” Moon told the Times-Picayune. “And then when it got closer to double digits, then you’re starting to really wonder, ‘What the heck is going on? Are we ever going to win a game the rest of the season?’”
The frustration kicked in. Moon, then with the Houston Oilers, said he could hardly go anywhere in town without hearing how poorly he was performing. His family also received the blowback, even after Moon finally snapped the losing streak to finish his rookie season 3-13. The following year, when the Oilers still struggled, Moon said he had his wife and children watch the games from a luxury box so they didn’t have to hear “some of the things people were saying about me.” It didn’t help matters that Moon arrived in Houston with enormous expectations, signing with the Oilers after becoming a five-time champion in the Canadian Football League.
Moon said he started putting pressure on himself to play better. Each week, though, the former quarterback felt he was improving, which, in some ways, only made the losing streak more frustrating. Like Rattler, he had the progress — without the wins to show for it. What else did he and the team need to do, he remembered wondering, to get a victory?
But as down as Moon said he got during those times, the former quarterback would assure himself by relying on his past experience. Moon had been through a rebuild once before. The University of Washington went 2-9 the year before he arrived on campus, but in his third and final year there, the Huskies won the Rose Bowl. Moon said he could see a similar “light at the end of the tunnel” in Houston.
Being in the tunnel, though, was far from easy.
“When you’re in the thick of it, man, you’re just wondering when the heck something positive is going to turn around?” Moon said. “Or is this the right play for me? Did I make the right decision to come here? You start questioning all those things.”
Rattler has his own history to draw from, a journey that allows him to put his NFL start into perspective.
By now, the story has been well documented — including in a literal documentary that portrayed a 17-year-old Rattler in a less-than-favorable light. But for those who don’t know: Rattler was so highly recruited as a five-star prospect that now Giants coach Brian Daboll — then with Alabama — once showed up to a weight-lifting class at the quarterback’s high school to offer a scholarship that same day. He committed to Oklahoma, seen as a potential No. 1 draft pick.
Then adversity struck. He lost his starting job to future No. 1 pick Caleb Williams and transferred to the University of South Carolina. He played well for two years, but not well enough to prevent him from falling to the Saints in the fifth round. His rookie season, filling in for an injured Derek Carr (who, funny enough, also lost his first 10 starts), was challenging.
“Spence’s mindset through this whole process has been phenomenal,” Moore said.
“You can see the maturity in him,” linebacker Demario Davis said.
Davis recounted a piece of wisdom from a former coach that he thinks applies to Rattler: You’re either moving forward or back — you’re never staying in the same place. He said it's a “life skill” to not always judge the result by the scoreboard, even in a game of wins and losses. Measuring your own progress matters, Davis said.
Rattler, for his part, said the wins will come. He expressed confidence he and the Saints could clean up their mistakes.
Moon sees that as the right approach. During his first season, the Hall of Famer said it was incumbent on him to keep a positive attitude and a strong work ethic because he understood that teams feed off their quarterback’s energy.
That effort, he believes, is what ultimately sustains a career. The mentality is how he and Troy Aikman went on to earn gold jackets, despite being members of the 0-10 club.
Over the phone, Moon said he sympathizes with what Rattler has gone through. He even thought the quarterback played “pretty good football” in Seattle, New Orleans’ worst loss of the year.
Moon also knows what’s waiting for Rattler if he can finally get a win.
“There’s no question it was a relief,” Moon said. “We celebrated in the locker room like we had just won a playoff game.”