Saints taking quarterback battle into final preseason game

By Ross Jackson

Buckle up, Saturday’s game against the Denver Broncos will be for all the marbles in the quarterback competition. 

New Orleans Saints head coach Kellen Moore did not name a starting quarterback for Week One of the regular season Tuesday, leaving the battle between second-year quarterback Spencer Rattler and rookie Tyler Shough open for the final preseason game. 

“No, we’re going through that process right now,” Moore said when asked if he’d selected a regular season starter. “Letting these guys continue to go through this journey. They’ve done some really, really good work. We’ll put ourselves in position for this Denver game and then see how it goes from there.”

This isn’t a massive surprise. Many believed that this would be the case for the ongoing duel. After Shough impressed the first week and Rattler stole the show in the second, it made sense that the team might treat the final preseason game as a bit of a tie-breaker among the live-game action portion of the offseason. 

New Orleans will consider not only the preseason stretch but also training camp when making the call. However, if the battle is as close as Moore has indicated, it may be new information that has the best chance of separating out a winner. 

The team’s last chance to find out will be this week’s practices and Saturday’s game against the Broncos. After that, Moore and his staff should have everything they need to make their decision. 

It’s close, it’s close,” Moore said of the battle. “We look at every aspect of this quarterback situation. And it’s really, really close. (The) numbers, experiences, reps. Everything. It’s going all the way back to training camp. Everything is very, very close between this group.”