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Katherine Terrell
METAIRIE, La. — Saints coach Kellen Moore said Wednesday he intends to start rookie Tyler Shough over Spencer Rattler for the rest of the season.
Shough was named the team’s starter Tuesday.
“Tyler’s starting, so we’re not looking back on that,” Moore said. “Obviously the goal is to let Tyler play and get going, and Spencer knows that his role is to be the backup and he’s supposed to help Tyler in any possible way. He did an excellent job today running the scout team.”
Moore said several times that he does not like the idea of going back and forth between quarterbacks. He echoed a similar sentiment when Rattler won the starting job over Shough in the preseason, only to make the change earlier this week due to offensive struggles in the first half of the season amid the team’s 1-7 start.
“We’re not doing this back-and-forth thing. I think certainly that’s the goal,” Moore said. “I think just the same way we talked about when Spencer went in there, we weren’t going to get into this whole debate each and every week. Tyler’s in there, he is ready to go. That’s the whole objective and plan of this thing is let Tyler go and have a ton of success and navigate the things he has to navigate.”
Moore informed Shough of his decision Tuesday after taking 48 hours to evaluate both of his quarterbacks following a 23-3 loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Sunday.
“He was just complimentary of the work that I’ve done behind the scenes and I was going to be the starter for this week and obviously continuing, but he just was kind of talking about what we need to do offensively, how we can kind of turn this around a little bit and just looking forward,” Shough said Wednesday. “So it was a good feeling but also in the same breath that we had a lot of work to do.”
Shough said his teammates have handled the change well so far, but emphasized that while he was happy for the opportunity, the situation isn’t ideal.
“I mean, so far so good. I think just building those relationships with those guys, it’s been awesome throughout the locker room,” Shough said. “Obviously it’s not like a fun situation. We’re 1-7 right now. … But obviously I’ve talked to all the receivers, man, we’ve been super close throughout this whole time. Actually, finally getting some reps in practice with them has been really, really good. So looking forward to kind of continuing that.”
Moore said he made the change because he feels Shough is ready and because the team needs to figure out how to find more consistency and success on offense.
“I think that doesn’t have only to do with Spencer, that has to do with everyone associated with the offense,” Moore said. “And so we’re continuing to build that and grow each and every week and I think Tyler’s ready to go. He’s prepared really, really well for this whole process.”