New Orleans Saints interim head coach Darren Rizzi spoke on multiple topics during his postgame media appearance, and one point of discussion was the performance of rookie quarterback Spencer Rattler.
Rattler had a strong first half to the game, and ultimately was forced to make some less than optimal throws down the stretch to try and help a comeback take place, to no avail.
Rizzi had multiple things to say regarding Rattler’s performance, starting with, “I know a lot of people are gonna put it all on the quarterback, but we didn’t give him much help today.”
He continued building off this point later on, when asked about the opposing defensive changes and why the Saints struggled offensively. Rizzi said: “No listen, we didn’t execute. We dropped some passes, we missed on a couple pass protection wise, I felt like Spencer never really got settled in there and he was moving around, and he made some plays moving around to his credit. But like I said, we had some drops, we had some penalties offensively that kind of stalled.”
Rizzi added: “If I’m not mistaken we were over the plus 40-yard line twice, and had penalties that pushed us back into a punt situation, and you know you’re in a game like this you gotta come away with some points when you’re down there. I don’t think there was a schematic thing that they did, as much as it was an execution thing by us.”
Then when asked how he viewed Rattler’s performance directly, he stated, “I feel like it’s a little bit hard to evaluate, to be honest with you. Before I watch the film, just watching with my eyes from the sideline, I didn’t feel like we gave him a chance a lot of times.”
Rizzi clarified that while Rattler had some mistakes, too often the rest of the offense let him down: “You know some of those third downs, he did miss a couple of throws, obviously the throw that he has to I think it was Cedrick (Wilson Jr.) there that got tipped up in the air that gets picked off, and then the pass at the end. I know we had the OPI called on us, it looked like we were gonna be in scoring range there inside the 5-yard line, and then we had the penalty. It’s gonna be a tough evaluation, I think we’re gonna have to take a step back and look at it through a different lens because I feel like there was a lot of times where he wasn’t getting any help.”
Ultimately it is clear that Rizzi believed Rattler was not getting much help out there, and that seems relatively clear from the stat sheet as well. We will see if he is able to get the start in Week 18 or if Derek Carr returns for one more game.
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