Early indications on Derek Carr’s new hand injury had the New Orleans Saints quarterback likely going on injured reserve, effectively ending his season. But according to interim head coach Darren Rizzi, that isn’t the direction the team is leaning, at least not right now.
“I’ve already seen some reports out there, a little bit false,” Rizzi told reporters Monday afternoon. “Right now like I said yesterday, Derek’s dealing with a non-throwing hand injury. As it stands at this moment I don’t believe it’s going to be an I.R. situation, I think it’s going to be a week to week situation. We’re going to kind of take this day by day this week. We’ll see how this week plays out.”
Rizzi added that Carr was diagnosed with a concussion and must complete the first step in the NFL concussion protocol on Tuesday, so adding a second injury makes the situation difficult to navigate. He isn’t anticipating much movement on Carr’s outlook this week given all those questions, but Rizzi says that could change with time.
The key point here is that Carr won’t be going on injured reserve, at least not yet. Rizzi pointed to other quarterbacks who have played through hand injuries like Josh Allen and Justin Herbert as examples of how this could be overcome.
“It’s a good-news, bad-news situation, right? The good news is it’s not his throwing hand. The bad news is obviously we’re dealing with an injury here we have to play it by ear,” Rizzi said. “It appears at the moment that it’s non-surgical, which is a big aspect of it. If it were surgical we’d be having a different conversation. But it has been done before.”
So stay tuned for updates on Carr’s status. There’s a chance he could play against the Washington Commanders next Sunday without practicing, but that feels unlikely, and Rizzi said he’ll name a starting quarterback in the next day or two. That could be Jake Haener. It could be Spencer Rattler, who started three games earlier this season when Carr suffered an oblique muscle injury. We’ll just have to wait and see.
