Mickey Loomis attempted some revisionist history when comparing Derek Carr’s first year with the Saints to Drew Brees’ debut as the league-leading passer:
New Orleans Saints general manager earned some ire from his team’s fans on social media during his latest appearance on WWL Radio, having tried his hand at some revisionary history. When recapping Derek Carr’s up-and-down first year in New Orleans with WWL’s Jeff Nowak, Loomis made an impressive misstep in comparing Carr’s lack of success to the challenges Brees experienced in his first year on the job as the Saints’ starting quarterback.
“I mean, this is Derek’s first year with us and if we went back to 2006 and looked at Brees’ first season or with us, you wouldn’t say, ‘Wow, that guy is going to the Hall of Fame’ after season 1 or season 2, so sometimes it takes a while for us to be familiar with him,” Loomis mused. “For him to have a real grasp of the offense, in terms of being reactive instead of thinking and making a play and getting on the same page with our staff, our coaches as well as our players.”
Archival materials aren’t as common dating back to 2006 — which makes sense given the Saints’ status in a smaller market with a decreased media presence in the wake of Hurricane Katrina — but here’s what one of the longest-tenured analysts on the beat had to say at time.
Writing for the Houma Courier, Mike Detillier recapped Brees’ first 13 games as such: “Brees has been just what the football doctor ordered for the Saints as far as intelligence, leadership, production and gamesmanship is concerned. … The former Purdue All-American and his former teammate in San Diego, halfback LaDainian Tomlinson, should be the co-MVP’s in the league this season.”
And speaking as someone who lived to experience it, no one was calling Brees a future Hall of Famer after his first season. But even the critics who had called him damaged goods over the summer were won over by the time he ended the year with Pro Bowl and first-team All-Pro recognition, having lead the NFL in passing yards (4,418). When Brees followed up that performance with more sky-high passing numbers (and, critically, winning seasons and a Super Bowl title) he was being discussed as a Hall of Fame lock by the 2011 record-breaking campaign.
But back to Loomis’ point and the comparison to Carr. It’s true that few fans were putting Brees in Canton going into the final week of the 2006 regular season or even in 2007. At the same time, Brees had done much more to give fans reason to think this team had a future with him under center than Carr has this year.
In 2006, Brees conducted an offense that ranked fifth in scoring, third on third downs, and third in yards per play. Carr’s version of the offense ranks 14th, 16th, and 18th in each of those same categories. And let’s not forget that, at the time, Brees was a 27-year old coming off of reconstructive shoulder surgery with 59 career starts behind him. Carr joined the Saints with five years and 83 more games’ worth of experience behind him.
Sure, Pete Carmichael isn’t the play caller that Sean Payton was, but when you’re comparing players like Loomis is trying to do you’ve got to keep focus limited to those players. Loomis might be trying to pull a fast one on a disgruntled Saints fanbase, but fans on social media rightfully didn’t let it slide. Here’s what they’re saying in response on Twitter, the platform currently known as X:
