This is a tough quote on Derek Carr, but it lines up with what we saw on Thursday night. The Jacksonville Jaguars defense was not fazed by the threat of big plays from the New Orleans Saints quarterback in their 31-24 win. Afterward, Jaguars safety Rayshawn Jenkins let everyone know just how little he and his teammates thought of Carr’s ability to attack them over the top.
All they had to do, Jenkins said, was just keep everything in front of them: “We know that’s Derek Carr’s game. He’s gonna check down, check down, check down. We just have to win the game down the field and that was the mindset of the DBs. We’ll let him have the checkdowns; we’ll come up, rally, tackle that and get rid of the shot plays.”
Carr’s longest completion of the night was a 21-yard pickup early in the second quarter by Alvin Kamara, who made a nice play in space to gain most of that after the catch. Kamara led the team with 12 receptions for 91 yards; Carr was unable to put the ball where his wide receivers could have a chance to catch it on deep shots to Michael Thomas, Chris Olave and Rashid Shaheed in other opportunities.
And this was a big criticism of Carr during his nine-year Raiders career. He was dinged for being too eager to throw a pass short of the first-down marker and force his running backs or tight ends to move the chains. The Saints forced him to throw downfield often early this season, but that’s obviously not a style of offense Carr is comfortable running. It’s worth asking whether he’s even capable of it. With opposing defenses keying in on his vulnerabilities so successfully, he’s got to show the Saints he can win in different ways.
