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Katherine Terrell, ESPN Staff Writer
METAIRIE, La. — New Orleans Saints quarterback Derek Carr had been waiting for his moment and during the second quarter of a 44-19 victory over the Dallas Cowboys on Sunday, he seized it.
Carr snuck the ball into the end zone for his first rushing touchdown since the 2020 season. He jumped up from the pile and broke out dance moves made famous by Michael Jackson.
“I gotta see this!” linebacker Demario Davis told Carr later in the locker room. “You did the Michael Jackson, bro?”
“That is different! OK!” Davis exclaimed in delight as he watched the video.
No push needed. TD CARR
📺 FOX pic.twitter.com/turLKY1FCM
— New Orleans Saints (@Saints) September 15, 2024
The first two weeks of the season have brought out an aspect of Carr’s personality he didn’t get to show much last year.
“People don’t know a lot of stuff about me. … Weddings or birthdays, I’m always dancing,” Carr said. “One time I hit the Michael Jackson and [my brothers] were like ‘Bro, you have to do that if you score.'”
Carr, 33, has plenty to celebrate so far in his second season with the Saints.
The Saints (2-0) scored on their first 16 possessions of the season and their 91 combined points are the most since 2009, when the team scored 93 points in the first two games. The team leads the NFL in point margin (62), and Carr leads all quarterbacks in total QBR (96.6) and has 443 passing yards for five scores and one interception.
Getting to this point hasn’t come easily. New Orleans won four of it last five games — including a Week 17 game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers — giving the team a chance to earn a playoff bid. Despite beating the Atlanta Falcons 48-17 to end the 2023 season, a Tampa Bay win over the Carolina Panthers gave the Buccaneers the tiebreaker in the NFC South race.
Carr, who signed a four-year, $150 million deal in 2023, had to do a lot of introspection. He finished the 2023 season 13th in passing yards (3,878), 10th in passing touchdowns (25) and 10th in quarterback rating (97.9) while throwing eight interceptions, but becoming the face of a new franchise wasn’t easy.
“It took longer to get used to than I thought it would,” Carr said during the summer. “I thought being in the league … 11 [years], it would happen faster. That really didn’t matter. You change organizations, it’s a learning curve.”
AFTER FALLING SHORT of a playoff bid last year, Carr said the Saints were angry.
“We’re a little pissed off and, a little edgy, a little testy, as my wife would probably say,” Carr said during training camp.
He felt determined to get off to a faster start this year. The Saints started 2-0 last season, but both wins — a 16-15 win against the Tennessee Titans and a 20-17 win against the Panthers — required fourth-quarter heroics by Carr and New Orleans to seal the victory.
He had said his release from the Las Vegas Raiders in 2023 after nine seasons “lit a fire under him,” but the results were short lived. Carr sprained the AC joint in his shoulder in a 18-17 loss to the Green Bay Packers in Week 3. Against the Buccaneers in Week 4, he threw 23 passes for 127 yards and no touchdowns for his worst total QBR as a Saint (22.7).
The quarterback described the start of last season as “tough,” citing the injuries and the team’s poor play. When a local Mardi Gras float depicted him as a one-armed “red zone zombie,” Carr took it in stride, saying the float was “exactly what I felt like the first half of the season so I understand.” When fans booed him during a home loss to the Detroit Lions, he was also understanding.
Saints running back Alvin Kamara, who had a four-touchdown day against the Cowboys, said that Carr received a lot of criticism last year and “maybe more than he deserved.”
“I would be lying if I stood up here and told y’all it didn’t hurt him. I’m sure it hurt him, because I see what type of work he puts in,” Kamara said. “I see the type of player that he is and the player he wants to be.”
They hit a slump after their hot two-game start and went 3-6. In that nine-game span, the offense ranked 29th in red zone efficiency (42.5%) and 30th in red zone scoring percentage (77.5%).
Carr hopes to avoid that midseason lull.
Through conversations with Hall of Fame quarterback Peyton Manning and former Saints quarterback Drew Brees, he got advice on how to get off to a faster start in a new offense engineered by new coordinator Klint Kubiak. He emulated the “mental reps” strategy Brees was known for, running through the entire practice script every day before the rest of the team showed up.
“I’m not being funny, but I’ve been through learning offenses a lot,” Carr said while referencing being in his second offense in two years with the Saints. “And I’m like, ‘Man, how do I start faster this time? How can I be better this time than I’ve ever been starting in a new offense?’ I always learn it. I always know it, but it’s the reps [that matter].”
Carr has described the offseason as “exhausting” but ultimately fulfilling.
So far, it hasn’t gone unnoticed. He capped the Saints’ season-opening drive against the Panthers with a 59-yard touchdown to receiver Rashid Shaheed. He helped make a Cowboys defense, which allowed the fifth-fewest points per game last season (18.5), look porous and disorganized on their home field.
“The city’s been hard on him. You coming in, you trying to fill the shoes of a Drew Brees who’s been ‘that guy’ for so long,” Kamara said. “That’s hard for anyone to do.”
THE SAINTS’ SENSE of urgency was high going into the 2024 season. Allen, 16-18 through two seasons with New Orleans, parted ways with a majority of the offensive staff in the offseason. The team replaced longtime offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael with Kubiak in hopes of modernizing the offense. Carmichael, 52, had been with the organization since 2006 and was the OC for 15 seasons.
Kubiak’s system, a version of his father Gary Kubiak’s offense, relies on pre-snap motion and play-action. The Saints utilized play-action on a league-low 13% of their dropbacks last season, the lowest rate in the league. That number has increased to 51% this season, the highest.
“Dropbacks [are] gonna be a part of it, but, the main emphasis is gonna be able to run the ball effectively, and then be able to create some, some shot plays in the passing game off the play-action,” Allen said in March.
Kubiak also intended to get Carr moving around more instead of simply dropping back to throw. This involved getting him rolling out of the pocket on bootleg plays or selling play-action. Carr said he got out of the pocket against the Panthers more than he ever had in his career.
The coordinator’s other objective was simplification. What once worked for Brees and former coach Sean Payton — long playcalls and a notoriously complex playbook — might not work anymore.
In a win-now year for Allen, they needed to evolve to fit the players on the roster.
“If you’re hard-headed then it’s not going to go very far,” Kubiak said. “It’s all about the players and getting them in position.”
Allen also wanted to take some weight off Carr’s shoulders.
“He’s been freed up a little bit in terms of not having to control every single thing on the line of scrimmage,” Allen said.
Kubiak has made it clear he’ll tell Carr when it’s time to be aggressive or dial it back.
“He’s like, ‘I will tell you. Don’t even worry about it. You just play.’ And it’s freeing for me. … There’s no indecision at all,” Carr said.
The system relies on complete trust in Kubiak. Carr said he had to bite his tongue a lot in the beginning.
“I’m thankful for it because there’s this happy medium. … And also me taking a step back and saying ‘What’s best for our team? What’s best for me? What’s best for everybody around me?'” Carr said. “‘Maybe Derek can do that, but can the other 10 handle [all of it]?’ It’s different for everybody.”
IT WOULD HAVE been easy for Carr to focus on the areas he needed to improve on the field. But he knew he needed to be a better leader as well.
Last season, he was caught on camera yelling at wideout Chris Olave for the way he ran a route. In another, he aired out frustrations to Carmichael in a moment caught on camera by a fan. Late in the season, he and center Erik McCoy, a fellow captain, snapped at each other coming off the field.
Carr said later he needed to learn to rein in his emotions going forward.
He wanted to be more present for his teammates outside of football. With the responsibilities of moving his family to a new city behind him, he pledged to do better.
He showed up more to community outings. Allen said he became more present around the facility, which has a trickle down effect for younger players, who tend to follow the direction of the leaders.
“Derek’s been so much more visible around the building,” Allen said. “… You can kind of do your preparation at home. And yeah, you can get yourself ready, but there’s something about everybody kind of seeing everything the same way, and there’s something about everybody seeing our best players in the building and watching tape and studying and getting themselves prepared.”
Carr also started inviting his offensive teammates and their families over to his house for dinner. Carr and his wife hosted the offense in the spring around OTAs and again when training camp ended, but he hopes to make it a regular routine.
“This is a family. What we’re about to go through is hard. And I just felt like last year in our unity, as we grew closer, we played better,” Carr said. “And so we’re just trying to promote that it’s not only to play better, we genuinely care about each other.”
When he gets together with quarterbacks coach Andrew Janocko, 36, the two of them spend meetings cracking “dad jokes” to the befuddlement of backup quarterbacks Jake Haener, 25, and Spencer Rattler, 23. He also tried to be a mentor to the two younger quarterbacks.
Still, Janocko said the three quarterbacks are still “competitive as all get out.”
“If one of the guys makes a throw, Derek ain’t having it. He ain’t going to be bested,” Janocko said. “He’s going to go in and say ‘Get out, get out, I got it.’ That’s been really cool too.”
The Saints face the Philadelphia Eagles on Sunday (1 p.m. ET, Fox) back in Caesars Superdome. In a pivotal season for Carr and his head coach, the quarterback said he promised the city he’d do anything to win. So far, those wins have come easily.
“I know it’s not going to be perfect,” Carr said, “but I was going [to] exhaust everything that I could begin to imagine to try and be better this year.”