The New Orleans Saints made a big splash in free agency when they signed longtime Las Vegas Raiders quarterback Derek Carr, and Drew Brees is a fan of the move. He expects Carr to hit the ground running and quickly establish a rapport with his new coaches, including his play caller. He spoke about the move with The Advocate’s Luke Johnson at the Zurich Classic this week.
“I think he’ll mesh well with Pete Carmichael,” Brees began. “I think he’s got some weapons around him. I’m excited that Michael Thomas will be back and hopefully healthy — he deserves that. I think they’re going to be well-positioned to make a run at it.”
The NFC South is a morass waiting for one team to separate itself from the pack, with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers tanking while the Atlanta Falcons and Carolina Panthers slowly rebuild. Just four teams won double-digit games in the conference last year: the Philadelphia Eagles (14-3), San Francisco 49ers (13-4), Minnesota Vikings (13-4), and Dallas Cowboys (12-5), leaving plenty of room for an opportunistic squad like New Orleans to elbow into the playoff picture.
Carr has caught some flak for getting the Raiders to just one playoff berth in a decade under center, but Brees chalks that up to the disfunction surrounding that franchise: “I think he caught the brunt of that unfairly, and I think you shoulder a lot of that burden as the quarterback anyway. I think highly of him as a person. He’s shown the ability to execute complicated offenses where a lot is put on the quarterback position to be able to make checks and make reads very quickly. He’s proven that.”
His best performances came in the West Coast-style offense that former Raiders coach Jon Gruden ran from 2018 to 2021, in which Carr posted four consecutive 4,000-yard seasons while completing 67.3% or more of his passes (and scoring 90 touchdown passes against 41 interceptions). Gruden’s playbook shares a lot of DNA with the system Sean Payton installed in New Orleans, and which Carmichael is still running. Expectations are high for Carr going into 2023.
As Brees pointed out, we’ve seen the impact an upgrade at quarterback can make for a team — Tom Brady won the Buccaneers a Super Bowl. That’s a lofty expectation to put on Carr. Let’s just start out with hoping for a postseason appearance.
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