Stephen Lew-Imagn Images
By Ross Jackson
Ahead of his best performance as a pro, New Orleans Saints quarterback Spencer Rattler received some high praise from one of the league’s brightest defensive minds.
San Francisco 49ers’ defensive coordinator Robert Saleh was asked for his thoughts on the Saints’ offense. After praising new head coach Kellen Moore as a “very, very good play caller,” he eventually found his way to discussing Rattler. In doing so, he inferred that every NFL fan will know the passers’ name by the season’s end.
“This quarterback, I’m telling you, he’s going to be household by the end of the year,” Saleh said of Rattler. “This kid’s pretty good. He’s a twitchy athlete. He’s got a hell of an arm, very decisive in his decision-making as he goes through his progression and he’s accurate with the football.”
Robert Saleh (last week) on Rattler pic.twitter.com/biifW0JYrx
— kaj (@kadinjanisch) September 17, 2025
That’s some impressive acclaim for the young signal caller which preceded Rattler’s high-level performance against the 49ers on Sunday wherein he completed 73.5% of his passes, threw three passing touchdowns and achieved a career-high passer rating of 118.1.
He’ll have to follow up with more strong performances and continue to show progress and improvement in the meanwhile. He himself acknowledged his part in missing a connection with wide receiver Chris Olave for a possible opening drive touchdown.
Rattler isn’t just receiving praise from his team and its fans, he’s seeing adoration from opposing coaches, as well.
It’s easy to write off such kindnesses as “coach speak” or league politics. But Saleh was unprompted in his praise of Rattler, specifically, and he turned out to be right in foreshadowing a strong performance by the Saints’ starter.
