With the Saints basically out of the playoff picture and rookie Spencer Rattler nearly engineering a comeback attempt on Sunday, it seemed likely that Derek Carr wouldn’t play again this season. However, both head coach Darren Rizzi and GM Mickey Loomis have rejected that notion over the past couple of days.
Earlier today, the Saints announced that Rattler would step back into the starting lineup for Monday’s game against the Packers. Shortly thereafter, Rizzi clarified that the rookie would garner his fourth career start only if Carr wasn’t healthy enough to play (per Ross Jackson of Locked On Saints). The veteran continues to recover from a concussion and fractured hand he suffered back in Week 14.
The Saints sit with a less than one percent chance of making the postseason, and the team will surely be preparing for 2025 over the next few weeks. Still, Carr could work his way back to the field, with Loomis declaring that his squad was going to “try to win every game.”
“He’s gonna be day-to-day, really, and he’s got an issue in his hand and there’s … a reason to be optimistic, but it’s a day-to-day thing,” Loomis explained during an appearance on WWL Radio (via Jeff Nowak of the station’s website). “We’re just gonna have to go along and when he gets to the point where he can function well enough to play in the game, I know … he wants to play and when he can, he will.”
While the Saints’ desire to compete down the stretch is admirable, there are some good reasons to shut down Carr for the year. For starters, only $10MM of the QB’s $40MM earnings in 2025 are guaranteed, but there’s another $30MM guaranteed for injury. By shutting Carr down now, the team can avoid the risk of re-injury and assure that Carr is fully healthy in March (when the injury guarantee would be locked in). As Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com notes, the Raiders benched Carr during his final season with the organization, mostly so they could assure the QB was healthy before the injury guarantee kicked in.
Of course, Carr’s return would signify full health, but the organization may not want to take the risk of the veteran suffering a severe injury that leaves no doubt about the impending guarantees. For what it’s worth, Rizzi shut down the idea that the team would bench Carr to avoid another injury (and the injury guarantee), with the head coach noting that the QB would already be on IR if the Saints wanted to follow that path (via…