There's some quarterback consternation ongoing in New Orleans.
The Saints benched quarterback Spencer Rattler in the third quarter of Sunday's 23-3 loss to the Buccaneers, replacing him with second-round rookie Tyler Shough, and head coach Kellen Moore would not commit to a starter moving forward following the game.
"We'll navigate this thing over the next 48 hours," Moore said. "Put ourselves in position to have a good week, get ready to roll. I'm not into flip flopping quarterbacks and all that sort of stuff. This had just an element of lately not executing high enough football and not playing well on offense, and trying to create a spark. I'm not into this back-and-forth game, but we do have to make some decisions here moving forward really as a whole offense collectively with a lot of positions."
Rattler, who has started all eight of the team's games this season, had 136 yards and an interception on 15-of-21 passing, plus a lost fumble, at the time of his benching. Outside of a short field-goal march before halftime that started in Tampa Bay territory due to a turnover, all of his possessions proved fruitless. His final drive in charge resulted in a punt and a net gain of -7 yards, after which Shough was seen warming up on the sidelines.
A 2024 fifth-round pick, Rattler played tough to begin the season after winning the Saints' starting job out of training camp. He entered Week 8 with 1,450 passing yards, eight touchdowns and four interceptions with an 88.4 passer rating. However, Rattler hit a wall lately, with three of those picks coming in a loss last week to the Bears and his fifth this season turning into a defensive touchdown for the Bucs.
Shough entered the game trailing, 17-3, having attempted two passes thus far this season. He finished the contest with 128 yards and an interception on 17-of-30 passing.
While Shough certainly moved the ball better, with New Orleans amassing 139 yards on his four possessions compared to 121 on Rattler's seven, he failed to lead any scoring drives and was playing against a Buccaneers defense protecting a fairly safe lead.
He showed some promise adjusting to plays breaking down, but he also turned the ball over on downs twice, missed wide receiver Rashid Shaheed on a deep ball that could've gotten close to making it a game and threw the aforementioned pick -- though that was on WR Chris Olave allowing safety Antoine Winfield Jr. to rip it away from him.
Without many positives from either QB, the Saints fell to 1-7 with plenty of questions to answer under center and beyond.
They are slated to travel to Los Angeles to play the Rams in Week 9.
