Not everyone is ready to close the book on a Spencer Rattler trade.
Bleacher Report’s Alex Kay still sees the New Orleans Saints quarterback as a name to watch, ranking him as the fourth most likely backup quarterback to be dealt this season. That view comes even though the Saints did not complete a move before the season, and even though Rattler’s preseason created plenty of doubt among fans.
Kay’s logic is simple enough: quarterbacks get hurt, and when that happens, teams start looking for help fast. A midseason need could push a club to call on Rattler, and while it would be unusual for four backups to be traded in one year, his placement on the list still stands out. The quarterbacks ahead of him may carry bigger price tags, which could make Rattler a more appealing option for a team looking to fill a hole without paying top dollar.
The Jacksonville Jaguars were among the teams exploring that kind of possibility. It was reported that they contacted the Saints about Rattler at the end of the preseason while searching for a backup quarterback. That report caught plenty of Saints fans off guard after Rattler’s rough showing in August, but it also suggested the league may not be nearly as down on him as some in New Orleans were after those three games.
There’s no hiding the fact that Rattler struggled. Still, the preseason numbers don’t tell the whole story.
He was working with backups, and that makes it fair to wonder how different things might look with a starting group around him. His own hesitancy showed up in those games, too, which is the kind of issue that can be viewed as both a concern and a possible fix.
The last time he was with a starting unit, Rattler was solid without being spectacular, and the Saints did not turn that into wins. Even so, the final preseason game left the sense that the 2025 version of Rattler is still in there somewhere - the same version that had people talking about him as a trade candidate in the first place.
That is why a move later in the season could look different from the Jaguars’ preseason inquiry. Then, a team would have been trying to add a backup for insurance.
By midseason, the emergency may already have hit, and that changes the asking price. In that case, a club would not just be buying depth.
It would be trading for a starter, and that should bring back more than a late Day 3 pick years from now.
For the Saints, the preseason also clarified something else: moving on from Rattler feels more possible now than it did before camp. New Orleans has been careful with him because it likes him as Tyler Shough’s backup, but the roster now includes another option for that role.
Rattler beat Wilson for the job, and that matters. At the same time, it was a closer competition than many expected going into camp. Wilson’s showing wasn’t enough to win the backup spot, but it did give the Saints some room to consider a trade they like without feeling as though they’d immediately created a hole behind Shough.
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For a player trying to keep his NFL dream alive, that matters. Harris was hoping another year in college might help him rebuild some momentum and strengthen his case for a practice squad opportunity or a better professional landing spot, but now he has to find another way to stay in the mix. Without that college fallback, the next step gets a lot less forgiving. [Read more 🡒]