6:03pm: Carr concluded his visit, Sean Fazende of FOX 8 tweets. The ball remains in the 31-year-old quarterback’s court. If Carr is willing to waive his no-trade clause, the Raiders and Saints will have the green light to finalize trade terms. If not, free agency looks like the next step here.
5:33pm: Derek Carr remains in New Orleans for a second day of this Raiders-approved visit. After the Carr-Saints meeting wrapped at around 10:30pm Wednesday, Nick Underhill of NewOrleans.football notes (via Twitter) the meeting has continued today.
Dennis Allen and Saints brass went to dinner with Carr on Wednesday night, per NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport, who adds New Orleans is viewed as the frontrunner to land the nine-year veteran (video link). The Raiders and Saints have not agreed completely on terms, but Tom Pelissero of NFL.com tweets the framework of an agreement is in place.
Initially, the Raiders were not prepared to allow Carr to speak with any team that had not agreed on trade terms. By broadening that baseline to suitors who are in the ballpark of Las Vegas’ preferred compensation, a visit came to pass. Carr wields a no-trade clause, giving him the ability to nix a Raiders-Saints agreement and move closer to free agency. No deal is expected to be finalized Thursday, Rapoport adds.
Six days remain until Carr’s $40.4MM guarantee vests. The Raiders will not pay their longtime quarterback that money, which will lead to a trade or release. The Saints, whose Carr interest generated buzz at the Senior Bowl, are almost the de facto frontrunners here. No other team having been granted permission to speak with Carr. Raiders potential concerns about Carr’s agent using talks to gauge free agency interest helped lead to the narrow parameters on a visit. Even though Carr has only spoken with the Saints, other teams have looked into this early free agency sweepstakes.
The Commanders and Jets were mentioned as suitors late last month, and the Jets are examining Carr. The Commanders are taking a somewhat unexpected offseason course, at least compared to how they have proceeded in recent offseasons. Expected to shed $26MM-plus by releasing Carson Wentz, Washington is planning to give Sam Howell a long look as a potential starter. The team is still monitoring veterans, but not to the degree it did in 2022. Commanders connections to just about every potentially available vet sprang up last year, leading to the Wentz swap. Despite Howell being a fifth-round pick and making on appearance as a rookie, he appears to have a decent chance to be Washington’s 2023 starter.
Expected to dive far deeper into the veteran QB pool, the Jets will need to determine if they want to pursue Carr now or wait for the likes of Aaron Rodgers, Jimmy Garoppolo or another potentially available arm after this February Carr chase wraps up. The Raiders have also been connected to Garoppolo and Rodgers, raising the stakes for a Jets team that has been tied to vet QBs for weeks.
New Orleans has Jameis Winston under contract through 2023, but after benching Drew Brees‘ initial successor, the Saints should not be expected to retain him. Not when they are $60MM over the cap. As of mid-January, no Andy Dalton talks had occurred either. While the Saints did obtain a first-round pick from the Broncos in the Sean Payton trade, that pick sits at No. 29 overall. This draft’s top four QBs will likely be gone by that point, and a veteran would seem to complement the Saints’ experienced roster better anyway.
Guess the Saints haven’t been watching the Colts go for washed up QB’s the past 3-4 years.
They didn’t need to – as they were living that lie themselves (via Dalton, Winston, Siemian, Hill).
And the Saints are in a worse state beyond QB than Indy has been. They just refuse to take a year or two to reset and clean up their cap situation. They should’ve stopped kicking the can down the road once Brees retired. Wonder why Payton essentially quit on them and moved on.
One of the worst run teams in the league. Doing literally everything in their power to compete with Carolina and Atlanta to decide who gets to be one and done via blow out in the playoffs.
Other teams fight to keep Title window’s open, the Saints fight to keep their window to run a horrible division, open.
Is there that much competition for Carr that there is even a front runner at all? Getting Carr isn’t exactly winning a sweepstakes.
Saints make sense. Carr has an ugly record when playing in cold weather. Panthers would be the only division rival where that could be an issue.
Is the Saints coach any good? That’s my question. They don’t seem like they really have their act together down there as of late.
What would make Carr avoid free agency? He still could sign w/the Saints in free agency. Signing now would only be doing LV a favor.
I guess a bird in the hand ($40 million signed contract), is worth more than two in the bush (potentially more or maybe less)… not sure though
Carr would be a great fit in New Orleans. An underdog with talent who is anxious to prove himself. Once the malingering and disingenuous Michael Thomas is shipped out for good (finally), the Saints WR core will be full of positives. Plus, a very strong defense takes off the pressure on him. Carr will get great fan support here and avoid the east coast media histrionics. Great fit with a lot of upside for both Carr and Saints.
No team can win a Superbowl with Carr as quarterback – unless – they commit to building a great defense (like the 2000 Ravens or the 2015 Broncos).
I mean Tom Brady never won a Super Bowl with a defense ranked lower than 8th so I don’t know what your point is.
please no
Raiders will be better without him regardless. Hard to have a 6-11 record and praise the QB. Call it 6-9 if you want, that’s still terrible.
They won’t be better because the coaching, FO and ownership is complete trash. They alienated Carr because they had delusions of getting Brady to come there. They’re going to pivot to Rodgers, and they’ll whiff. And they’ll come crawling to Jimmy G, who’ll spend half the year injured while being a significant downgrade at the position. The Raiders will go 3-14, and they’ll sit there like the clown show they are and make more excuses because the people that need to go won’t.
Carr will win with his new team and I’m going to laugh. The Raiders deserve failure because it’s what upper management constantly strives for. They have a Commitment to Ineptitude.
Not sure what the domino effect of a carr trade would be for saints or if Carr would “choose” to go there. They are around 55-60 million OVER the cap so the restructures, drops etc surely will hurt the team as a whole unless carr takes way less money. Seems odd to me that saints are even in it.
With Carr I could see the Saint’s go 8-9 and win the division