After putting on an offensive clinic in the first two weeks of the 2024 campaign, Derek Carr and the New Orleans Saints suffered a dramatic freefall. They lost their next seven games, a stretch during which Carr missed a few weeks due to an oblique injury. He returned later in the season, but in Week 14, a combination of a concussion and a fractured hand ultimately ended his season.
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He only started 10 games in his second year in the Bayou, and while he went 5-5 as the starter, the team went 0-7 without him under center. Carr seemed to be the glue holding this mess of a Saints team together. Those injuries to his oblique, head, and hand kept him from making a greater impact. However, notice that his shoulder was not one of the areas of concern for him last year.
Somehow, in the three months since the end of the season, a shoulder injury has surfaced for Carr. It was reported last week that, not only was Carr dealing with a shoulder issue, but it could put his availability for the entire 2025 season in jeopardy.
The timing of the report, coming about five months after Carr last played competitive football, has piqued the interest of insiders Mike Florio and Chris Simms. Simms senses something fishy going on in New Orleans. And it’s not just the crawdads.
“Why is this happening now? This is like one of my pet peeves in the NFL. We’ve had no football since the first week of January. We’ve had all this time to get healthy,” Simms said with frustration.
“Now’s time to get back to work. What is it with NFL players, or Derek Carr specifically in this, that now it’s time to go to work, now I’m gonna go, let me check my body out to see if I’m okay from football that I played three and a half months ago. Have we not thrown a football all through January or February at all?” he continued.
It is a strange situation, but what could be the reason for the delayed report? Florio believes this was a very strategically timed leak that comes as the “momentum” for Shedeur Sanders to the Saints at the draft is really starting to heat up.
“How long has Derek Carr known that he’s had this shoulder problem? And was this some sort of strategic leak just as the momentum was building and building and building, that the Saints are going to take Shedeur Sanders at No. 9?” asked the PFT journalist.
“Guess what Saints, he may not be there at No. 9 now, because you’re desperate, and what happens when someone’s desperate, you get leapfrogged.”
Florio also noted that there had been some rumblings that Carr was looking to test the open market this offseason. However, he and the Saints then restructured his contract to keep him tied to New Orleans through the 2025 campaign. It seems all is not well with Carr and the Saints, and, as Florio said, the momentum for them targeting Sanders seems palpable.
With no one but Jake Haener, Spencer Rattler, and Ben DiNucci on the roster at quarterback behind Carr, New Orleans seems more and more likely to be taking aim at a QB during the draft earlier rather than later. The Carr news does kind of show their hand, however, which could lead to some complications, as Florio laid out.
