Rattler outduels Wilson as Saints close preseason 1-2
Spencer Rattler answered Zach Wilson's push with a rushing touchdown and a 27-24 win over Dallas, and the Saints still don't have a clean answer at backup quarterback heading into cuts.
Rattler answers Wilson, but the backup job still isn't settled
Tyler Shough has the starting job locked down, and he didn't take a snap Friday — which is exactly why every series left in the preseason has been about who backs him up. Spencer Rattler went 8 of 10 for 79 yards and scored on a 9-yard scramble in the 27-24 win over Dallas, the kind of clean, decisive night that had him favored for the job all camp. Zach Wilson answered right behind him, going 9 of 12 for 93 yards in relief — enough that Yahoo Sports called the competition Wilson has built since his own sharp debut against Jacksonville "much more interesting" than it looked a month ago.
"Proud of the guys," - Spencer Rattler on the #Saints win vs the Cowboys t.co/QlygjB8NG5
Rattler had the fuller stat line, and a rushing touchdown against a real opponent settles arguments a practice rep can't. "Proud of the guys," he told reporters afterward, in a line the team's own account posted straight from the locker room. Kellen Moore kept his read simple, calling the whole night just "fun" for a group that's about to lose a third of the room to cuts. Nobody won the job outright Friday. But with roster decisions due by Sunday, Rattler leaves the preseason as the guy with the rushing score and the cleaner counting stats, and that tends to matter when a staff has to pick.
Last time out: Saints close the preseason 1-2 with a finale win over Dallas
New Orleans beat Dallas 27-24 on August 29 to finish the preseason at 1-2, a needed bounce-back after the previous week's scoreless 34-0 shutout at the Rams. Barion Brown scored on a 7-yard touchdown run, rushed twice for 19 yards overall and added a 4-yard punt return; Bryce Lance caught two of four targets for 28 yards. In the backfield, Audric Estime ran for 46 yards and caught all three of his targets for 22 yards, while Kendre Miller added 42 yards on nine carries and a 15-yard catch.
Cowboys27-24
Rams0-34
Jaguars20-24Daniel Carlson nails a 54-yd FG to give the Saints a 27-24 lead with 1:55 left in the game!
It came down to a kick from a player who wasn't on the roster a week earlier. Daniel Carlson — a two-time All-Pro who spent 2018 through 2025 with the Raiders — signed with New Orleans on August 25 after a kicking competition between Tanner Brown and Charlie Smyth failed to settle anything, atozsports.com reported. He drilled a 54-yard field goal with 1:55 left for the eventual final margin. That's the preseason in one sequence: a fringe name doing something that matters against a real opponent, a week before cuts.
The secondary got two new names before Sunday's cutdown
New Orleans used the days around the finale to patch depth as much as audition it, signing cornerbacks David Long Jr. and Michael Davis on August 26 to a room that had just lost Rejzohn Wright to injured reserve with a hip injury. On offense, Chris Olave was already back at full practice Wednesday after an upper-body issue that pulled him out a day earlier, Katherine Terrell of ESPN.com reported — a real break given how thin the receiver room would look without him.
None of it changes the calendar. New Orleans has to be down to 53 players by Sunday, and Friday's game was the last live look the staff gets before those calls get made — which is exactly why a Brown touchdown or an Estime third-down catch carries more weight in August than the final score ever does.
Up next: a road trip to Detroit to open the real season
The preseason is done, and New Orleans' next snap counts for real — Sunday afternoon in Detroit, against a Lions team that just beat Washington 17-13 to finish its own exhibition slate 1-1. Detroit is favored, and the line opened at 6.5 points with the total set at 48.5, a number that reads as a shootout more than a defensive struggle.
The Saints go in as an underdog on the road against a Lions team that's opened Super Bowl contenders in each of the last two years, which is about as sharp a contrast as a Week 1 matchup offers — one team fresh off a scoreless shutout of its own starters, the other with Jared Goff and a full complement of returning talent. Whoever won the backup quarterback job this week won't matter Sunday unless something goes wrong behind Tyler Shough, but everything else New Orleans figured out in August — who runs it, who catches it, who kicks it — travels with them to Ford Field.