Last year at this time, the Raiders benched and sent home quarterback Derek Carr in order to avoid owing him $40 million, fully guaranteed. This year, the Saints don’t have that luxury.
They’re already on the hook for $40 million, as a practical matter. Carr’s contract pays out a $30 million salary in 2024, all of which is fully guaranteed. Another $10 million due in 2025 becomes fully guaranteed in March 2024. The Saints can avoid the extra $10 million only by cutting Carr before the payment vests.
Would they pay him $30 million to go away, in order to avoid owing another $10 million? Probably not. But if a coaching change is coming (Saints fans periodically clamor for one), a new coach might be willing to take the hit — especially since an offset obligation would apply to the 2024 salary.
How much would someone else pay him, if he were available? He’s good enough to be almost good enough. Plenty of teams don’t have that. How much is it worth?
Then there’s the possibility of a trade. It wouldn’t be easy at this point to get another team to take on the current financial obligation the Saints have to Carr. Would the Saints pay $15 million of his salary?
It might not even take a coaching change to spark a potential quarterback change in New Orleans. Asked after last night’s loss to the Rams how he thought Carr played, Dennis Allen finished the response by saying, “I thought he played OK.” (In fairness, he started by saying, “Overall, I thought he played well.”)
Allen was then asked the more pertinent question about how Carr handled pressure.
“I think he was fine,” Allen said. “I think he was fine. [Editor’s note: Sometimes, we say things twice in an effort to convince ourselves of what we’re saying.] I think, obviously, there’s sometimes, again, where maybe get through his progression a little bit quicker, maybe hang in there a little bit more. There’s a lot of things that go into it, but I thought overall, it was a solid game for him.”
Allen was being charitable. He’s not going to call out Carr publicly. The truth is he didn’t, and doesn’t, handle pressure well. He is, frankly, a game manager.
And that’s OK. He’s a top-of-the-bottom-half-of-the-league quarterback. Good enough to get you close to the playoffs. Not good enough to consistently get you there, unless you’ve got a great defense and great running game around him.
Is he worth a $40 million investment? The Raiders decided a year ago that he’s not. The Saints have already made the decision that he is, unless they’re willing to pay him the difference between what he can get elsewhere and $30 million to go away.
I’m not saying the Saints will, or that the Saints should. It would be foolish, however, to think they aren’t at least considering their options. After nearly a decade in the league, Carr is who he is: pretty good.
In today’s NFL, pretty good doesn’t win championships — unless there’s a pretty dominant team around him.