Jake Haener knows exactly how important this offseason is for him and his NFL career, so when his doctor made the suggestion that he should miss a full week of practice due to a facial procedure to remedy skin cancer , he ended that conversation with a look.
"She didn’t want me to practice Wednesday through Friday just because she thought if I had too much blood flow or my heart rate got too high my stitches would kind of burst, and that’s a whole 'nother nightmare you’re dealing with," Haener said this week. "So, she looked at me and told me I wasn’t going to be able to practice, and I looked at her, and she put a couple extra in there."
In all it was 32 stitches to close up a roughly 2-centimeter hole to clear out cancerous tissue. The second-year pro missed a Monday practice session as he had the procedure, but was back on Wednesday after the team's scheduled off-day. There were some extra coverings placed on the wound as he played in the preseason opener against the Cardinals, and the stitches came out earlier this week. As he stood in front of the media on Thursday there was a visible scar on the QB's right cheek, but otherwise it's a saga the young player is eager to move on from.
"I’m doing some lazering stuff on it just to help the wound heal a little faster. Other than that I’ll have a little scar there and hopefully it fades over time, but just trying to take care of it and close it up and off and away we go,” Haener said.
The former Fresno State Bulldog has handled the distraction well, but now he can largely focus on a quarterback competition with rookie Spencer Rattler to decide who will be the primary backup quarterback during the 2024 season. To this point it seems too close to call, with the pair continuing to alternate 2nd and 3rd team reps from day to day. That's expected to continue in this week's preseason game. Haener finished out the first half last week, with Rattler playing the second half.
Wherever he gets his reps, Haener knows it's going to come down to performance. He'll quickly credit quarterbacks coach Andrew Janocko and Klint Kubiak for the depth of information throughout the install and he particularly likes the amount this offense gets him on the run through designed bootlegs and rollouts.
“I feel like diagnosing what’s happening and how I need to process things," Haener said. "I feel like when you get more and more comfortable in the system, in the protections, what the offensive line is making in protection, you start seeing things a little faster and you can get to your progression a little quicker."
After an anticipated return to the Bay Area for Haener, he and the Saints will ship back home for the remainder of training camp and a preseason finale against the Titans at the Caesars Superdome. That slate will include a pair of joint practices, one outdoors at Tulane's Yulman Stadium, with the other at the Superdome.
"I am fired up to get back to Louisiana," he said. "I was telling Derek, too, it feels like I haven’t been there in 2 or 3 months, go be in front of the fans, have a couple open practices, have them feel the energy, what this offense can bring and just let them know we appreciate them right, let them know we’re excited to be back and excited to go win some games.”
A friendly reminder that the feels like temperature was well over 115 degrees in the Crescent City this week only slightly dampened that optimism.
"It’s all right," he said. :A little heat. Adversity is good for you, only makes you better.”
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