IRVINE, Calif. — With a joint practice against the Los Angeles Rams on the schedule for Thursday, the New Orleans Saints held a short and light practice Wednesday afternoon at UC-Irvine, working for about an hour in shells before calling it a day.
New Orleans ran only 32 plays during full-team drills, focusing mostly on situational work, and ran its first period of seven-on-seven since late July. As they’ve done several times in recent practices, the Saints rotated Tyler Shough and Spencer Rattler with the first team throughout, giving Shough the first opportunity while giving Rattler an extended look with the first team late.
After a somewhat off day in Tuesday’s practice, Rattler rebounded with a mostly sharp effort in Wednesday’s session. And while Kellen Moore said earlier this week that Jake Haener is still a part of the starting quarterback discussion, the coach has not backed up his words with the distribution of practice snaps.
Here’s how the numbers shook out for the quarterbacks:
Spencer Rattler: 11-16 (111-166 overall)
Tyler Shough: 3-6 (97-154)
Jake Haener: 0-1 (73-109)
New Orleans ran only three full-team periods, and only one of them featured an extended drive — the quarterbacks only ran a max of four plays on the other.
Rattler’s first two drives featured some excellent, confident throws. He hit Brandin Cooks on a deep crosser for a big gain on his first series, and then threw an in-rhythm dart to Chris Olave for a touchdown on a red zone sequence. His only incompletion on those first two drives was a throw to Kevin Austin that likely would’ve resulted in a defensive pass interference had there been referees at practice.
The Saints closed practice by giving Rattler the first team offense on the plus-40-yard line needing a touchdown in a late-game situation. On that drive, Rattler converted a third and short with a throw to Olave and a fourth and 5 to Juwan Johnson at the line to gain just before the linebacker arrived. Rattler also gained a free five yards by getting Bryan Bresee to jump with a hard count.
He positioned the Saints to have a shot at a score — it wasn’t clear how many points the offense was trailing by in the situation, but it was clear they needed more than a field goal. But after a false start by Rashid Shaheed set the offense back, Rattler’s last gasp heave to the end zone as the clock was draining was intercepted by Julian Blackmon to end the practice.
While Shough was the first one on the field Wednesday, his reps were extremely limited. He led only two drives, one of which ended when his throw missed low and behind Rashid Shaheed on a third down play — after which, he found Shaheed on the sideline and appeared to talk through the play.
His only other drive came in the red zone, which he ended on a nifty play-action shovel pass touchdown to Jack Stoll. Shough also converted a third and 3 on that red zone sequence with a quarterback draw — another data point in a long line of them suggesting the quarterback run game may be in Moore’s toolbox.
Haener, meanwhile, is clearly the odd man out of the mix — even if Moore isn’t willing to say so publicly.
He only took four scrimmage snaps in Wednesday’s practice, all with the third team, and his lone pass attempt was a throw away as he evaded pressure. New Orleans has held four practices in California so far, and Haener has thrown just 17 passes during full-team periods in those sessions — one less than Rattler had in Wednesday’s practice.