There’s a fire inside Derek Carr. The embers may have simmered over recent years. But they remained hot, waiting for the proper spark to reignite them.
And now, after getting released by the Las Vegas Raiders and signing on with the New Orleans Saints, the veteran quarterback’s inner flame is roaring once again.
“I’d be lying to you if I said I didn’t have a chip on my shoulder with how everything finished,” Carr said Saturday at his introductory press conference in New Orleans. “I didn’t plan on or dream of it finishing that way. That’s for sure. I was told why, and I understood the business side of why certain things were happening. I get it. But, for me as a competitor, I wanted to finish with my teammates.
“It lit a fire in me that I’ve always had. But it just made it hotter.”
Carr spent the first nine years of his NFL career with the Raiders. He has played in all but four regular-season games. Two absences were due to injury. The other half of the total, well, the Raiders benched Carr with two games remaining last season.
The writing was on the wall at that point. Carr bid farewell to Las Vegas.
The Raiders wanted to trade Carr, but the no-trade clause in Carr’s contract gave him veto power. Even though the Saints propositioned a trade, Carr chose not to go down that route. He wanted to explore all his options through free agency.
The fact the Saints were willing, however, remained with Carr.
“You’re showing me value without even showing me value, right?” Carr said. “You’re valuing me as a quarterback, me as a human without even having to say anything. And that meant something. Not just something, that mean a lot.”
So, although the Carolina Panthers and New York Jets were later in the running for Carr’s future, the Saints prevailed in their relentless recruitment.
And they were indeed relentless. Saints coach Dennis Allen made it clear he wasn’t after any veteran free-agent quarterback. He wanted this exact veteran free-agent quarterback.
“I do want to make sure that everybody knows that Derek is a much quicker decision-maker on the field than he is off the field,” Allen said. “He took way too long with the process. But we’re obviously happy that we have him.
“I was fortunate enough to be the with the Raiders when we drafted him in the second round (of 2014) and have always admired the type of person that he is as well as the type of player that he is. And so, it’s been outstanding just to watch him grow both as an individual and as a player.”
Personally, Carr and his wife, Heather, have been married since 2012, so before he entered the league. But since then, they have welcomed four children — one girl, three boys — into their life: Brooklyn, Deker, Deakon and Dallas.
Professionally, the 31-year-old (32 on March 28) is a four-time Pro Bowler. He has averaged 24.1 passing touchdowns and 3,913.6 yards passing per season since 2014. He owns a 63-79 record as a starter, with two winning seasons and playoffs appearances.
“I’m going to be very imperfect, but I promise you perfect effort,” Carr said. “That’s what I can do. The film study, the work ethic, the city of New Orleans — just like Las Vegas, just like Oakland — is going to get literally everything that I have.”
The areas of improvement Carr listed for improvement were simple. Complete passes. No interceptions. Win games. Those will all come with time.
Where he really wants to start making immediate moves is in the locker room. Carr has reached out to many of his new teammates and plans to hit up all of them sooner rather than later. He needs them to know they can always count on him, inside and outside the facility. The word he used was brotherhood.
“I’m not trying to take anything over,” Carr said. “I’m going to be me. I’m going to call out what I want to call out and encourage what I think should be encouraged.
“But I’m here to do this with Cam (Jordan), with Demario (Davis), with Tyrann (Mathieu), with Taysom (Hill), with Alvin (Kamara). If we want to go far, we’ve got to go together.”
Leave a Reply