On The Move: Breaking Down Derek Carr on the Saints

Derek Carr is now the quarterback of the New Orleans Saints after nine seasons with the Raiders. Once upon a time, Carr was an exciting young fantasy option, but he’s now mired in the flotsam of unexciting pocket passers that aren’t much more than spot starts in one-QB formats. Does joining the Saints change that? Let’s discuss.

Carr had some promising advanced numbers for a few years with the Raiders, and entering 2022, he seemed like a sneaky candidate for a late breakout campaign. He’d posted those intriguing advanced numbers with some underwhelming (to be kind) receiving crews, and last year he was gaining Davante Adams to go with Hunter Renfrow and Darren Waller. Instead of breaking out though, Carr posted 234.8 yards per game, his lowest mark since 2017, an unimpressive 24 touchdowns against 14 interceptions and he was benched toward the end of the year because the team had decided they were moving on and didn’t want an injury keeping his contract on their books. PFF had been his friend previously, but in 2022 he only earned a 66.6 grade, 27th in the NFL.  

Despite a cupboard full of weapons, Carr helmed the 15th-best offense by Weighted DVOA, and just the 21st-ranked offense by Pass DVOA. It was a mediocre year, and while some of the metrics weren’t as favorable as they’ve been in past years, the results we actually care about were right in line. While Carr looks the part, he’s never averaged more than 282 yards per game in his career, he’s only managed 30+ touchdowns once, and while he set a career-high in yards (4,804) in 2021, he only threw 23 touchdown passes in that season. I was the guy pointing out that he rarely had good enough receivers to maximize his play, but last season he had plenty of options and it was the same old Derek Carr. And while you could argue that Carr was pretty consistent – two or more touchdown passes in 10 of 15 games – there weren’t spike weeks. He topped out at 307 yards in 2022, and threw three touchdowns in a game twice. With no spike weeks, and nothing in terms of rushing production, Carr was just okay at a position where that’s a big disadvantage.

So we know who Carr is at this point. But can he elevate by joining the Saints? In short, probably not. He’s joining a team that’s re-signed Michael Thomas, and has a budding superstar at WR in Chris Olave, who was one of the NFL’s premier downfield threats last year as a rookie. This is a team with a game-breaker at RB in Alvin Kamara, multiple TEs that can make plays, and a Swiss Army knife in Taysom Hill who can impact games in a variety of ways. But we just saw him flounder on a team with Adams, Renfrow and Darren Waller, with a big-time RB in Josh Jacobs who had a career year. Carr is going to be Carr, and while he might look to be a big upgrade on paper for Thomas, Olave and co. Andy Dalton actually graded very well in 2022.  

It might be tempting to target Carr late in drafts with this level of talent surrounding him – I was guilty of it last year – but there will be better choices. Leave him on waivers and pick him up if he’s got a juicy matchup. Waiting at the position and hoping he pieces together a good-enough season won’t hack it.