The Fallout: Why Derek Carr says he’s playing the best football of his career, ‘Werner Texas Ranger’ and ‘Rizzi the Builder’

I’ll admit. It sounded a little like hyperbole to me, at first, when Derek Carr said Sunday he has been playing the best football of his career in New Orleans.

But the numbers actually bear it out. Carr’s passer rating of 106.4 this year is the highest of his career and currently ranks fourth in the NFL.

Last year, he led the NFL with a passer rating of 118.9 during the final five weeks of the season. And when you combine those two stretches, only Lamar Jackson has been better.

Carr is currently in a stretch dating back to last year where he has thrown 27 touchdown passes vs. just five interceptions, while completing 71.1% of his passes. Only three quarterbacks have ever had a higher completion percentage in a single season in NFL history (including Drew Brees four different times!)

Even Carr’s 8-5 record as a starter in that stretch is better than you’d expect considering the Saints’ dismal results overall.

None of that is meant to suggest that Carr should get a Pro Bowl nod or even a contract guarantee for 2025 and beyond in New Orleans. But it all validates how the 33-year-old Carr has been feeling in the 11th year of his career.

“I gotta be honest, the end of last year and the beginning of this year, absolutely, I feel great. I feel like it’s been my best football that I’ve played in my career,” Carr said. “And so I feel confident in that, I feel confident in who I'm playing with, I feel confident in the building that I'm in. And they continue to just breathe confidence into me, and that goes a long way for players.”

Carr’s past two games have been even more impressive considering the caliber of pass catchers at his disposal while both Chris Olave and Rashid Shaheed are out with injuries – not to mention the well-chronicled offensive line issues this team has had. But he commended those who are making plays around him for “allowing me just to be free” while also crediting offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak.

Perhaps Carr was feeling extra frisky, though, after he did his best Taysom Hill impersonation with an 8-yard bootleg run on third-and-1 in the first quarter of Sunday’s 35-14 victory against the Browns.

Carr has been insisting since the summer that he’s got better running ability than he gets credit for – and he was hoping this new offense would give him chances to exploit it.

“It was actually a play we’ve had up before, but this game presented good looks, and the coaches liked it, and that was gonna be our first short-yardage call,” said Carr, who joked that “they put the over-under at six yards. So I didn’t know where I was, I just knew I needed more.”

But in my opinion, the most impressive play Carr made on Sunday came on another third-and-1 bootleg when he also had plenty of room to run for the first down later in the first quarter. Instead, Carr kept scanning the field and found receiver Marquez Valdes-Scantling wide open. So he threw him a short pass, which MVS turned into a 71-yard touchdown.

“Oh man, my boy had a field day out there today,” Saints linebacker Demario Davis said. “He’s a true point guard if you really watch him. He gets his Rajon Rondo on quite a bit, finding players. And I was telling him in the locker room, some of my favorite plays is to watch him when he rolls out the pocket.

“The poise that he plays with when he rolls out of the pocket, when he’s on, he’s one of the best doing it.”

MCCOY AND WERNER INJURY UPDATES

Rondo wasn’t Davis’ best comp of the day.

No, that came when Davis was describing the toughness of fellow linebacker Pete Werner, who played with a club on his hand just one week after suffering an injury that required an unspecified surgery.

“You know, that's some ‘Walker, Texas Ranger’ toughness right there,” Davis said of the 1990s TV series starring Chuck Norris. “Man, he broke his hand last game, had a major surgery, I think he has a steel plate in his hand, and he wraps it up with a club. And he tested it out in practice, and he's like, ‘Man, when I hit somebody, it still feels like I'm punching a brick wall.’ And he’s like, ‘But I'm gonna tough it out.’

“And he got my respect. He already had my respect, I already knew he was a tough player. But man, like your hands and feet, those are some very sensitive areas. … It just speaks of his toughness and his commitment to the game.”

Meanwhile, center Erik McCoy returned from a seven-week absence following groin surgery and continued to play at an elite level according to Nick’s film review.

McCoy left the game early with another groin issue Sunday. But coach Darren Rizzi said both Sunday and Monday that the team was being extra cautious. And he said Monday that it looks like McCoy will be “OK” after he went through a bunch of tests. Rizzi added that it’s probably a good thing the Saints have a bye in Week 12.

NEUTRALIZING GARRETT

Speaking of Nick’s film review, he pointed out that Kubiak was back in his bag with some more healthy options at his disposal, like McCoy and Taysom. Perhaps nothing the Saints’ OC did was more impressive than neutralizing Cleveland’s elite pass rusher Myles Garrett – who had three sacks the week before.

Garrett had two QB pressures according to Next Gen Stats, but no QB hits or tackles in the entire game. Some of that was the type of chipping and double teaming and misdirection we’ve seen Kubiak use to great effect throughout the season. Carr also said rookie left tackle Taliese Fuaga deserved a ton of credit.

“We made sure we had a plan for him, because he is one of the most dominant players I've ever played in my 11 years in the NFL. He is insane how good he is,” Carr said. “And so thankfully he didn't decapitate me on the one I was throwing to Foster (Moreau) because he found a way in. But I thought our offensive line did an outstanding job, tight ends, running backs, receivers, we had just different kinds of looks, different kinds of things that you don't always use in every game.

“(But) we did leave (Fuaga) out there a couple of times. You know, you can't always chip and do certain things 100% of the time. And I thought he did a fantastic job. And what an experience for him to go against one of the more dominant players our league has ever seen, and to just grow in confidence and continue to get better. And he'll see things he'd want better or all those things. But for him to get a taste of playing against Myles, what that's like, and for him to handle himself really well … The thing I look for is the body language, you know the eyes before we go out there in the huddle on a third down. And he’s a very confident young man. And so his confidence gives me confidence. … His confidence is definitely years beyond how old he actually is.”

NOTABLE AND QUOTABLE

Tight end Juwan Johnson got a ton of credit for blocking all the way down the field on MVS’ 71-yard TD. Johnson later caught a TD of his own, which Carr said was an example of “the game eventually rewards you.”

Davis was full of good quotes Sunday. The best was when he shamed himself for missing two opportunities at interceptions – and now three over the past two games: “I'm gonna be looking tonight or have my wife look tonight on Amazon Prime delivery. I gotta get some hands at this point. We shop so much on Amazon, so we might have some one-day delivery that we can get for free. … I need the best hands I can find at this point. I am shopping for some hands.”

Everything Rizzi is touching seems to be turning to gold right now – including some lineup tweaks at WR and KR during his watch. The Saints made receiver Mason Tipton a healthy inactive for the first time Sunday and released WR/KR Jermain Jackson in place of more playing time for Kevin Austin and Dante Pettis. Both have contributed on offense, and Pettis almost made a monster play with an 88-yard punt return (though replay showed he stepped out after 53 yards).

Even Rizzi’s props are having an effect. Players credited him for dressing as a construction worker this past week to illustrate the “blue collar go-to-work” mentality and for bringing a level with him to emphasize the need to finish the job right. “I looked like Bob the Builder,” Rizzi said, speaking of decades-old TV references. Rizzi’s longstanding special teams mantra of everyone doing their “1/11th” has also turned into a T-shirt slogan that was hanging throughout the locker room last week.

Not everything has been perfect for the Saints during the two-game win streak. The defense is still allowing a maddening level of explosive plays, including an 89-yard TD pass from Jameis Winston to Jerry Jeudy and a 30-yard TD from Jameis to Elijah Moore. The Saints have now allowed 26 plays or penalties of 30-plus yards this year. Rizzi said it was absolutely a point of emphasis Monday (and will be the inspiration for an upcoming prop, for sure).

The 4-7 Saints have climbed back within two games of the reeling 6-5 Falcons in the NFC South. However, the Falcons have already clinched a better division record, so the Saints can’t win a tie-breaker. They would need to finish with a better overall record to pull off an unthinkable rally.

Everybody loves Jameis. Not sure I’ve seen many postgame receiving lines quite this long.

All love for Jaboo ❤️ pic.twitter.com/RESRMWIxaW— New Orleans Saints (@Saints) November 17, 2024