Category: Derek Carr

Cam Jordan’s goal for 2023: ‘I expect to take Derek Carr back to Vegas’ for Super Bowl 58

Cam Jordan’s goal for 2023 is simple, saying on SiriusXM NFL Radio: ‘I expect to take Derek Carr back to Vegas’ for Super Bowl 58

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Whew. You can’t say Cameron Jordan isn’t motivated — the New Orleans Saints defensive end made an appearance on SiriusXM NFL Radio, and after sharing a thoughtful take on the impact Derek Carr could have on the Saints offense in crunch time, situations that got away from the team in recent years, he delivered the money line.

Asked about his expectations for 2023, Jordan responded: “I expect the Super Bowl, I expect to take Derek Carr, DC4, back to Vegas where he just left and have a return run, have the Super Bowl.”

Super Bowl LVIII will be held at Allegiant Stadium in Las Vegas, the home turf of the same Raiders franchise that just kicked Carr to the curb in favor of oft-injured quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo. Carr has made his feelings about the fallout clear, admitting he didn’t play his best football last year, but Jordan knows as well as anyone what it would mean for Carr to lift the Lombardi Trophy in the Raiders’ own building.

And as he observed, Carr could do a lot to help the Saints offense right itself after its struggles in life without Drew Brees and Sean Payton. Jordan pointed out the fatal mistakes the team made in so many losses last year — a failed third-down conversion here, a missed scoring opportunity there — and voiced his confidence that Carr can take care of business so that Jordan’s defense can focus on protecting “every blade of grass.” He’s fired up. It’s a shame we have to wait so long to see that passion translate to the field when the season begins in September.

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‘That’s not normal’: Derek Carr wowed by Alvin Kamara’s receiving ability

Alvin Kamara’s skills as a receiver wowed Derek Carr, who said after their first practice together: ‘That’s not normal’ | @crissy_froyd

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Whenever a versatile. do-it-all running back is mentioned as a hopeful prospect ahead of the NFL draft, one of the names they’re often compared to is New Orleans Saints star Alvin Kamara.

And newly signed veteran quarterback Derek Carr, who the team is betting on to make a significant impact in a playoffs or bust campaign, could hardly be more impressed by Kamara in the time he has had to work with him.

“Great teammate, very explosive,” Carr said after his first practice with Kamara at Tuesday’s minicamp. “So smooth on film. But then when you get in person, he ran a couple of routes and I remember I looked at Jake (Haener) today, and I was like, ‘Bro, that’s not normal.”

Kamara has experienced reduced usage as a receiver the last two years (averaging 3.6 and 3.8 receptions per game in 2021 and 2022) compared to when Brees was the quarterback (when he averaged 5.5 receptions per game from 2017 to 2020).

Will he see an uptick with Carr under center? Las Vegas Raiders running backs Josh Jacobs and Ameer Abdullah were targeted 96 times last year; Jacobs and Kenyan Drake were targeted 104 times in 2021. Kamara saw 97 or more targets through each of his first four years in the league, so look for Carr to throw his way often.

It will be interesting to see how things ultimately shake out for both Carr and Kamara as the Saints look to return to their previous heights. After finishing out their most recent season with an overall record of 7-10, 2023 should be a healthier campaign after a plethora of injuries derailed their offense the last two years. Finding a quarterback who can better use the weapons available to him is going to go a long way, but offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael Jr. needs to make adjustments as well.

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WATCH: Alvin Kamara, Derek Carr shine in Saints minicamp highlights

WATCH: Alvin Kamara, Derek Carr, and Taysom Hill shine in New Orleans Saints minicamp highlights

That’s what we like to see. The New Orleans Saints put in a solid day’s work at the Ochsner Sports Performance Center in Metairie on Tuesday, kicking off their three-day minicamp with a spirited practice session.

Highlights from Tuesday’s workout include some impressive footwork from Alvin Kamara and passing acumen not just from Derek Carr, but do-it-all threat Taysom Hill. Here’s a quick look at Tuesday’s takeaways:

Michael Thomas thrilled to be working with Derek Carr, compares him to Drew Brees

Michael Thomas says he’s thrilled to be working with Derek Carr, praising his new quarterback’s command of the huddle and Drew Brees-like discipline:

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Derek Carr was one of the first people Michael Thomas greeted when he walked onto the practice field at the Ochsner Sports Performance Center on Tuesday, and he made it clear after practice how excited he is to be working with his new quarterback.

“Oh he’s been amazing,” Thomas said, reiterating, “Amazing. I can’t wait to get out there with him and create something special, a connection. Just the way he commands the huddle, the sense of urgency, he’s a pro. It’s great for these young guys to see.”

In a lot of ways, Thomas says Carr reminds him of his old quarterback Drew Brees. Between his command of the huddle and his presence at the facility, Thomas feels that he and his teammates can learn a lot from their new passer: “His demeanor (stands out). Just everything, just watching him from when he gets in the building, kind of like Drew was, when he was watching film you could learn from him, in the locker room you could learn from him. Anywhere in the building you could learn something different from them that makes them how they are, and I respect (Carr) a lot. I love talking football with him. He loves football.”

Thomas added that he’s expecting to begin training camp at full speed after finishing his recovery from last year’s toe surgery, which currently has the team limiting him to individual work at OTAs. He’ll ramp up his activity level over the summer and do everything he can to be an asset for this team moving forward. Having a quarterback he believes in as strongly as Carr is powerful motivational.

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This projected 2023 stat line for Derek Carr would be a big disappointment

This projected 2023 stat line for Derek Carr would be a big disappointment. It has him averaging the second-fewest passing yards per game of his pro career:

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What are the expectations for Derek Carr in 2023? Obviously the most important goal is for him to lead the New Orleans Saints back to the playoffs and end their two-year postseason drought, but what about his individual performance?

Let’s start by checking in on this projection from Bleacher Report’s Alex Kay, who sees Carr as a big upgrade over New Orleans’ past options at quarterback (at least since Drew Brees hung up his cleats). But it might be too little, too late for Carr:

The New Orleans Saints have their best quarterback since Drew Brees thanks to their offseason signing of Derek Carr. While Carr fell out of favor with the Las Vegas Raiders at the tail-end of a disappointing campaign last year, he could experience a resurgence in the Big Easy.

With a decent group of wideouts that includes 2022 first-round pick Chris Olave and a once-elite veteran in Michael Thomas—who is trying to prove he has something left in the tank himself—Carr could put up some surprisingly decent numbers for the Saints.

Projection: 68 percent completion rate, 3,901 passing yards, 25 passing touchdowns; 13 interceptions, 30 carries, 118 rushing yards, one rushing touchdown.

It would help take the edge off if Carr guides the Saints to the postseason (something, it’s worth noting, he only did once in nine years with the Raiders), but that stat line would be a major disappointment with or without a playoff berth.

An average of 229.4 passing yards per game would be the second-lowest number in Carr’s pro career. A 68% completion percentage lines up with his recent performances with someone better than Josh McDaniels calling plays, and it’s worth noting he’s only thrown 30-plus touchdown passes once (in 2015). Carr has thrown 14 interceptions in each of the last two seasons, so that’s a comparable total, too.

As has been observed at other outlets, Carr can’t just be the same guy he was with the Raiders. He needs to elevate his play and that of those around him to justify the Saints’ decision to make him the face of their franchise. If he’s just turning in more of the same that got him run out of town in Las Vegas, fans in New Orleans shouldn’t be happy. Hopefully projections like this one end up being the floor, not the ceiling, for him in 2023.

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ESPN says Derek Carr must be better for the Saints than he was for the Raiders

Derek Carr arrived in New Orleans with a lot of fanfare, but ESPN’s Dan Graziano says Carr must be better for the Saints than he was for the Raiders:

The New Orleans Saints addressed the quarterback spot in a big way this offseason by signing veteran quarterback Derek Carr. Reactions to the signing have been mixed, as not everyone is sold on if Carr can bring a team to the light.

In a recent article ESPN’s Dan Graziano said that Carr has to improve in New Orleans if he wants to garner respect as a top-quarterback in the league; Carr left the Raiders with a 63-79 record as a starter and just one playoff appearance in 2021, but it’s a team sport and a lot of factors were out of his control. Here was Graziano’s reasoning:

Carr has always seemed like a quarterback who was just sort of “good enough.” As in, good enough that you don’t feel a crying need to look for other options, but not quite good enough to really win with. There were flashes, sure. There was that great 2016 season when the Raiders went 12-4 and made the playoffs but Carr broke his leg right at the end of the regular season.  Carr never really “got there” in terms of proving himself as quarterback who could elevate a team from good to great.

Now, there are all kinds of stats that show that Carr never had a good defense, let alone a great one, while with the Raiders. And the Saints will probably have a great defense this year. So we might get to find out whether Carr was being held back in Oakland/Vegas by forces beyond his control.

I would agree that Carr has not yet really proven himself to be an elite quarterback, but I would say that he has shown to be more than serviceable in continuous awful situations in Oakland and Las Vegas. The Raiders franchise hasn’t been one that has been able to build a winning culture since the 1980s.

There’s an argument to be made that this will be Carr’s best defense that he’s ever gotten to work with, so that would give him a larger leash than ever. It’s hard to say that this will be his best coaching staff, as Dennis Allen has been his coach before and was actually the one that draft him in Oakland.

Overall, this will likely be the best situation that Carr has had internally in a franchise and will be facing what is considered the easiest schedule in the NFL. While there might be some growing pains, there certainly isn’t much of an excuse to continue to be an middling quarterback.

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Dennis Allen comments on Jon Gruden visiting Saints practice

Dennis Allen comments on Jon Gruden visiting Saints practice, sharing input on coaching up Derek Carr:

This might have been blown out of proportion. The New Orleans Saints invited Jon Gruden to attend three days of practices last week to observe their offseason program and share input on how to best tool things to their new quarterback Derek Carr — who had some of his best seasons with Gruden calling plays for him on the Las Vegas Raiders.

Of course, Gruden’s tenure with the Raiders ended in scandal when a trove of racist, sexist, and homophobic emails surfaced and led to public outcry. When asked by ESPN’s Katherine Terrell about the decision to host Gruden at the team facility and link him to New Orleans, Saints head coach Dennis Allen was blunt in discussing his motivations behind that call.

“Look, I mean, number one, we’ve had several coaches come and visit (during minicamp),” Allen said, referencing visits from consultants like Mike Martz, Tom Coughlin, and the late Alex Gibbs over the years when Sean Payton was coaching the team. Gruden’s presence was hardly unprecedented.

Allen continued, “Obviously, Jon’s a guy that has a lot of experience with Derek and Derek has had his most success under Jon Gruden. And so we felt like bringing him in, having a chance to sit down and with him as an offensive staff, with the quarterbacks and just getting some new thoughts and ideas of things we might be able to implement. … But if there’s a few ideas that we could take from that, we felt like that would be beneficial.”

So Gruden isn’t on payroll, and he certainly isn’t getting an email address on the Saints’ server. From Allen’s perspective, this was an easy decision to make. Bringing in someone who knows Carr’s strengths and weaknesses as well as Gruden does makes a lot of sense, and it could pay off in the fall if the Saints are able to better acclimate Carr to the offense they have now.

Frankly, Allen isn’t in position to be picky. He’s on the hot seat after the Saints stumbled into a 4-9 deficit last season and clawed their way back to a 7-10 finish, with his mismanagement in Week 18’s loss to the Carolina Panthers costing another win. The sooner Carr has the offense humming, the safer Allen’s job will be. If that means bringing in someone with controversy surrounding them like Gruden, that’s what he’ll do. We’ll see how it works out for him.

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PFF barely ranks Derek Carr as a top-15 QB going into his first season with the Saints

Coming off a down year with the Raiders, PFF barely ranked Derek Carr as a top-15 quarterback going into his first season with the Saints:

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Derek Carr joined the New Orleans Saints with a lot of fanfare, but some analysts are still wondering whether the Saints truly upgraded by signing him to start at quarterback instead of Jameis Winston and Andy Dalton. Pro Football Focus recently took a look at every starting quarterback in the NFL and their take on Carr — coming off a down year with the Las Vegas Raiders — isn’t very optimistic.

PFF ranked every starting quarterback around the league, ranking Carr at No. 14 as part of a middle class in the NFL along with Geno Smith (No. 15) and Jared Goff (No. 16). PFF’s Sam Monson wrote of the pickup:

Last year’s 66.6 PFF grade was the lowest of Carr’s career outside of his rookie season. In what was supposed to be a solid season, Carr’s big plays declined and he was notably less accurate overall. His adjusted completion rate dropped by more than 6 percentage points from the year before to his lowest level since he was a rookie. That likely represents the floor for Carr’s play, and he has typically been a borderline top-10 player over his career.

Just because Carr didn’t play well in Josh McDaniels’ busted offense doesn’t mean he’ll continue to underperform in New Orleans, running a system with so many similarities to the scheme he ran well before that his former coach Jon Gruden was brought in for a week as a consultant to fine-tune the Saints offense for him.

But there is a chance Carr is hitting the downslope of his career. The Saints are betting on a rebound instead, and the early chatter from his coaches and teammates at spring practices are encouraging. Hopefully he keeps it and helps this team get where they want to go. We’ll learn who ends up being right in just a few months.

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Derek Carr had the best reaction to Foster Moreau signing with the Saints

Derek Carr had the best reaction to his former Raiders teammate Foster Moreau signing with the Saints:

You’d be hard-pressed to find someone happier for Foster Moreau signing with the New Orleans Saints than his Derek Carr, who he’ steaming up with again after they connected on a lot of passes together with the Las Vegas Raiders. Carr shared his congratulations when the news broke on social media, but he also commented on his team’s addition when he found out in person.

“I need to go give that guy a hug,” Carr told The Advocate/Times-Picayune’s Zach Ewing.

It’s been a rollercoaster of emotions for Moreau over the last two months. He entered free agency as one of the top options at his position, just 25 years old and coming off a career year. Then he learned he had Hodgkin’s lymphoma during a routine physical with his hometown team in New Orleans. He’s since undergone cancer treatment and begun the process to recovery, and circled back to sign with the Saints.

Now he’s playing pro football in the same city he grew up in, not far from the powerhouse high school he starred at to catch notice of recruiters with the LSU Tigers. There’s a lot of locals in his corner, but it’s great to see his quarterback is in his corner, too.

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Kyle Brandt ranks Derek Carr as a third-tier quarterback in the NFC

NFL Network’s Kyle Brandt ranked Saints passer Derek Carr as a third-tier quarterback in the NFC; @crissy_froyd on whether that’s a fair placement:

NFL Network host Kyle Brandt recently broke down his seven tiers of NFC quarterbacks on the Good Morning Football show, listing New Orleans Saints quarterback Derek Carr as a third-tier quarterback in the conference. The other quarterbacks sharing that tier were Geno Smith and Jared Goff.

This put Carr just a bit ahead of the middle of the pack, in front of the likes of Brock Purdy, Baker Mayfield and others. It also put him behind some names that included Kirk Cousins, Dak Prescott and Jalen Hurts.

Hurts was the only passer to land in the top tier, which makes plenty of sense after he signed a five-year contract for some $255 million dollars with the Philadelphia Eagles that set a record for a short period of time.

It will be interesting to watch how Carr fares with a change of scenery after he departed from the Las Vegas Raiders, finishing out his most recent season with a 60.8% completion rate, 3,522 passing yards, 24 touchdowns and 12 interceptions.

There’s no question that Carr’s touchdown-to-interception ratio has got to improve moving forward into what could be the last stages of his career with the number of years he has been in the league, but it’s safe to say this is a fair ranking for Carr given where the ceiling and the floor have proven to stand so far.

Obviously projected as the starting quarterback ahead of fall camp (anything else would be something as a surprise), Carr and the Saints await their 2023 schedule to be released on Thursday, May 11.

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