Spencer Rattler is back in the trade conversation this season after Bleacher Report’s Alex Kay ranked him as the fourth most likely backup QB to be moved. That places the New Orleans Saints passer in a narrow but real market, one that opens only if another team suddenly needs help.
That is why his name is surfacing now. Kay is effectively betting on injury, since a midseason deal would only make sense after a starter goes down and a team needs an immediate answer. The Saints did not get a deal done before the season, even though the Jacksonville Jaguars were in the market for a backup QB and were reported to have called New Orleans about Rattler at the end of the preseason.
Rattler’s own preseason made the interest harder to square. He struggled while playing with backups across three preseason games, a setting that did him few favors, but his last preseason game showed the 2025 version of Rattler was still in there somewhere. That split is part of the appeal and part of the problem: the tools are still visible, but the consistency was not.
The Jaguars’ call matters because it shows the interest was not abstract. They were looking before the season, while the Saints were still holding the line, and that is different from the kind of move Kay is projecting now. A midseason trade would come after the disaster has already happened, when a team can no longer wait and has to settle for the best available backup QB.
That leaves Rattler in a strange place. He has not played well enough to make trade talk easy, but he has played enough to stay on the radar of teams that may need a quarterback in a hurry. If another injury opens the door, the Saints could have something other clubs do not: a young backup with a market, and a deal shaped by desperation rather than patience.
