Spencer Rattler wasn’t the highest-touted quarterback prospect in the 2024 NFL Draft, but parts of his tape probably did say he should’ve been drafted much earlier. Instead, the former South Carolina signal-caller fell all the way to the fifth round and the New Orleans Saints.
According to a report from NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport, Rattler’s draft stock might have taken a hit because of his appearance on Netflix’s QB1 reality show back in 2019. Rattler was, of course, a high school football player back then, but it seems his approach on the show might have rubbed some teams the wrong way.
Whether that’s the right approach to evaluating a draft prospect (it probably isn’t) is a different story:
"It did not make him look great. And it is unbelievable how many different teams mentioned to me the image of him in that show and how they can't get it out of their heads."
Ian Rapoport on how a reality show filmed in high school is hurting Spencer Rattler now. pic.twitter.com/51n8nZA070
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) April 27, 2024
Hmm. What could Rattler have possibly done as a teenager to hurt him in his future NFL Draft? One clip from a Twitter user from the program shows Rattler criticizing his teammates. That isn’t necessarily groundbreaking — I imagine most good quarterbacks critique their teammates all the time — but NFL teams might have seen instances like this and deemed that it crossed a line:
Here’s a clip of @Netflix “QB1” on which former Phoenix Pinnacle QBs Spencer Rattler and JD Johnson competing together against the team defense and pushing each other as leaders of the team during and after the contest in practice in 2018. pic.twitter.com/YfZSOfiVdN
— DANA (@iam_DanaScott) August 17, 2019
Whatever happened here, this should all hopefully be water under the bridge for Rattler. He has his NFL home in New Orleans, and he can finally start focusing on his professional football future.