Jake Haener had a lot of learning moments in his first career preseason game, but there was also a moment that told you all you need to know about the Saints rookie.
Down 24-17, 2:02 remaining, ball at the New Orleans 24. The young QB took an offense that had been held scoreless since the first quarter and marched down 76 yards in six plays for a touchdown that felt like it meant a lot more the numbers it changed on the scoreboard.
"That’s a dude I ride for, because he understands the job," said RB Ellis Merriweather, who caught the TD at the end of the drive "Even though we got down, he threw a pick, his demeanor didn’t change."
The drive started with an 18-yard completion to Shaq Davis, which had 15 yards tacked on due to a roughing the passer penalty. After an incompletion to Merriweather, he found Jontre Kirklin for five yards, then took off on a scramble on the next snap for a new set of downs. Next it was Merriweather for 15, followed by a ball to Shaq Davis that drew a pass interference penalty and set up the Saints at the 2.
The next play was a designed rollout with Merriweather the primary read as he worked to the pylon. Touchdown. Clutch. The crowd goes wild.
“I felt comfortable that last drive and the previous few drives I thought we did a good job of communicating, getting the play in and really kind of getting into the flow of the game," Haener said. "I’m sure you guys could see that as we went forward. It was great to just be able to get out there, get my feet wet and then obviously orchestrate something to leave people wanting more.”
Haener finished the game with 105 yards passing along with that touchdown, but it was far from perfect. He went 10-17 with an interception. His first three passes went incompletion, incompletion, interception.
There was also a frustrating moment when the potential go-ahead 2-point conversion was snapped early and fumbled. Haener said the noise in the stadium was a factor. He was trying to kill the play and said "easy, easy," but center Alex Pihlstrom thought he heard "set, hut." It's the epitome of a preseason mistake by both the offense and the fans. Why y'all making so much noise while the offense is at work? Come on now. That said, it's impressive there were even enough fans in the 4th quarter of a preseason game to create such an error.
"There’s definitely a lot more on your mind from a college to NFL player," Haener said. "There’s a lot more kills, a lot more checks and I guess you need to do it at the line of scrimmage, so obviously working that out with my new center will be important moving forward.”
It might have been a bit of a surprise to anyone who had been tracking the rave reviews of his out of camp, but it's nothing out of the ordinary for a rookie getting used to the speed and complexity the NFL level brings. It didn't hurt that he had veterans in Derek Carr and Jameis Winston to bounce notes off of and to get him in the right mindset.
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Carr had some particularly helpful feedback.
"When he came off after the interception I said, ‘you know who else threw a pick in their first preseason game?’ And [Haener] started laughing. I said, ‘just keep cutting it loose, man. It’s a long half. We’re gonna win this thing,’ " Carr told the media after the game. "I didn’t know we'd win it the way that we did, but I was really proud of him and he’s gonna be a good player for a long time, because he works really hard and he cares — and he’s good. So I was really proud of him and the more reps he gets he’ll just keep getting better.”
In fact, that flubbed 2-point conversion set up what will go down as one of the more dramatic and exciting finishes to a meaningless game, with Chiefs QB Chris Oladokun inexplicably throwing an interception to Saints DE Kyle Phillips that set up a Blake Grupe game-winner and a 26-24 result.
Life as an NFL quarterback, particularly as a mid-rounder, is a constant uphill climb. Haener saw the highs and lows of that on Sunday, and he'll have plenty of more opportunities this preseason to continue to take steps forward.
In the end it was summed up best by TE Juwan Johnson, a player who was long done for the day by the time Haener even stepped on the field for the first time.
“I love that guy. I love the way he plays. I love the way he carries himself," Johnson said. "Not many rookies can go in there and do the things he did after throwing the pick. It almost seemed like it didn’t even matter to him, because he just plays the game how it should be played. Bad things happen, he gets up and goes to do his thing. It shows a lot about him that he went back out there, he did his thing ...d and got the game-winner for us. That’s just something that’s going to be building blocks for him for the future. He has a future in this league."
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