Derek Carr’s Contract Could Signal a Softer Than Expected Quarterback Market

Carr gained valuable long-term security in his contract with the Saints, but the move may indicate some of his veteran peers won’t earn what they’re expecting.

We’re back home, and the offseason is rolling. Let’s jump in …

• Derek Carr has found a new home, and there’s plenty we can learn from the deal he landed.

First of all, it’s clear now why the Raiders couldn’t trade him. He was due $75 million over the next two years in Vegas. He’ll get $60 million over the next two in New Orleans. He was due $116.3 million over the next three years in Vegas. He’ll get $100 million over the next three in New Orleans. And so the reason the Raiders couldn’t trade him wasn’t about who he is as a player—it was who he is a player against the contract another team would’ve had to inherit to acquire him.

Second, the deal does give Carr more security than he had with the Raiders—which means, in one way, this happening the way it did, versus how it would’ve if he was traded, is a win for Carr. On his Raiders deal, he’d have made more this year ($33 million vs. $30 million), but Vegas could’ve released him thereafter at a penalty of $7.5 million. On this deal, his $60 million for the next two years is fully guaranteed, with, essentially, a penalty of $10 million for releasing him after that.

(Offsets being what they are, yes, that means Carr would get $70 million at a baseline for two years in New Orleans, but the Saints would save some, or all, of that $10 million, based on whatever he earned from a team to sign in 2025.)

Third, the $50 million in the final year is cosmetic. The reality is it is a three-year deal for $100 million, with a balloon payment he’s highly unlikely to see that makes it look like he got closer to the $40.5 million per he had on the Raiders deal.

Fourth, the details of the Raiders deal really helped Carr. The no-trade clause (he’ll have one in New Orleans, too) allowed for him to control the process. The early vesting date on the $40.5 million guarantee—it converted from an injury guarantee to a full guarantee three days after the Super Bowl—allowed Carr to hit the market a month before the rest of what looks like a crowded crew of free agent quarterbacks.

Which leads us to the other thing, I think, we can take from this. That market might be softer than people think.

Derek Carr won’t be paid as much by the Saints over the next couple of years as he was going to be by the Raiders, but his new contract also gained him more long-term security :: Jayne Kamin/Oncea/USA TODAY Sports

• Carr’s market can illustrate that pretty clearly. When the Raiders put him on the block, two teams, the Saints and Jets, called. One, New Orleans, was willing to get to trade parameters Vegas was comfortable with (which is why the Raiders gave the Saints permission to meet with Carr). And then he became a free agent.

What happened then?

Same thing, basically. The Saints were ready to work out a deal. The Jets met with him twice, but wanted to slow-play it to keep their options open at quarterback. The Panthers met with him, but that meeting was an exploratory first step and no offer was made. Another team that some thought would throw its hat in the ring, the Buccaneers, never showed interest. So Carr moved, and for good reason—next week, the market will be flooded with veteran options, and the prices could wind up coming down.

If we presume the Giants and Daniel Jones work out a deal, then a look at the market shows a lot of guys with starting experience and not as many teams looking for veteran answers. If the Packers trade Aaron Rodgers, that’d take a potential landing spot off the table for someone without adding one to the mix (since Green Bay would go with Jordan Love). And then I think there are three teams—in Vegas, Atlanta and Tampa—that, absent a superstar being available, are more likely to bring in an economical vet to compete with a young guy.

The operative question here to me can be summed up like this: If you could’ve had Daniel Jones or Baker Mayfield a year ago, who would you have taken?

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My guess is most people would’ve taken Mayfield. Today, most would take Jones. That’s fine, I would too. But is he suddenly worth some $30 million per year more than Mayfield? Probably not. And I think that’s how some teams are looking at the quarterback market. Say, for instance, you’re the Raiders. If you could bring Jarrett Stidham back, and sign, say, Andy Dalton to compete with him, which would maintain your flexibility for the draft and for 2024, would you do that, or sign Jimmy Garoppolo (which Vegas could) at $30 million?

Moral of the story: I don’t think it’s crazy to think the bottom might fall out on someone’s market next week. And when you look at the depth of the market beyond guys like Jones (53 career starts), Garoppolo (57) and Geno Smith (51)—there are other names like Mayfield (69), Teddy Bridgewater (65), Jacoby Brissett (48), Sam Darnold (55), Carson Wentz (92), Dalton (162) and Jameis Winston (80) who could also complicate the picture.

• The Seahawks’ completion of the Smith deal highlights just how big a win the Russell Wilson trade was for Seattle.

But we’ll start with what this means for Smith, who had gone through a six-season stretch during which he only started two games, from 2015-20, before starting three in 2021. That stretch was enough for the Seahawks to give him a chance to win the job after they dealt Wilson to Denver. This year, he took that opportunity to the moon, posting a 100.9 passer rating and leading the Seahawks back to the playoffs after the worst season of Pete Carroll’s 14-year run in the Pacific Northwest had led to Wilson’s departure.

And it was when that all was starting to come together, after an early October win, that I asked him if he saw his fast start coming. He answered that he did.

“I mean, to be honest, I’ve been playing like this for a while,” Smith said. “It just doesn’t get recognized by you guys for some reason. But with the offense that I’ve inherited, man, we have playmakers everywhere. And these guys are playing great; they play hard. They’re some of the best players at their position in the league. We drafted two amazing tackles, we signed a first-class center who’s done a heck of a job, our running game is coming along.

“Obviously, we have to continue to build in all areas, but we’re getting better.”

Smith is right—his limited playing time in 2021 did offer a glimpse into what he could do. In four games, and three starts, his passer rating was 103.1. So all that time sitting, it turns out, had its benefits, even if those benefits were hidden from the rest of us while Smith was on the bench.

That brings us to where the Seahawks stand now a year after the Wilson deal. The trade brought back draft picks that helped John Schneider build a loaded rookie class in 2022, and positions Seattle with four of the top 52 picks this April. And the team is now two years younger than it was at quarterback, and a little leaner economically at the position, too.

We’ll see if Wilson, with Sean Payton alongside, can tip the scales of the blockbuster deal back in Denver’s favor in the fall. But for now, the Seahawks and Smith are the big winners.

• The Chiefs’ situation at left tackle is fascinating—they won’t tag Orlando Brown before tomorrow’s deadline, and that’s actually in an effort to get the position stabilized long-term. Maybe, still, that happens through a long-term deal for Brown. But they figured what wouldn’t solve their problem would be tagging Brown a second time, and they felt that way for two reasons.

1. Tagging him again would guarantee that he’d hit free agency next year, because the cost of a third tag in 2024 would be whatever the quarterback number is a year from now, and obviously neither the Chiefs nor any other team would go there. So you’d be talking about a $19.99 million tag now, and then being back in the same place a year from now, in part because …
   
   
2. The price of a second tag, near $20 million, would make doing a long-term deal challenging. Essentially, you’d have to put enough in front of Brown to keep him from just taking that, and then hitting free agency next March at 27 years old. So you’d be talking about a deal north of what Laremy Tunsil got in Houston, and one heavy on guarantees.

The Chiefs are aiming to settle the long-term future of their tackle positions, whether or not it includes Orlando Brown :: Eric Hartline/USA TODAY Sports

So now the leverage shifts—and we get to see how much Brown is worth without the leverage of the tag to Kansas City. He’ll get good offers, to be sure. But there are fair questions on whether or not he’s a left tackle or a right tackle, and if he’s a left tackle, which type of one he is. The good news is answers are coming, and the Chiefs could find out their price was right all along and get him signed long-term a little over a week from now.

And if Brown’s right, and the Chiefs’ proposals were low, well, then Kansas City likely looks toward the draft, with the top tackles out there in free agency (Mike McGlinchey, Jawann Taylor, Kaleb McGary) all right tackles by trade. Kansas City’s probably picking too low to get Northwestern’s Peter Skoronski, Ohio State’s Paris Johnson Jr. or Georgia’s Broderick Jones, but there should be at least a couple of viable options at 31.

One would be Oklahoma’s Anton Harrison. Another could be North Dakota State’s Cody Mauch. Or the Chiefs could go trade for someone like Tampa Bay’s Donovan Smith and draft a right tackle, like Tennessee’s Darnell Wright or Ohio State’s Dawand Jones, that may have potential to develop into a left tackle.

• So when I was asking around on combine winners the last few days, I had one veteran executive put Kentucky QB Will Levis on his list. And another I talked with Monday wondered out loud to me why more people aren’t talking about his combine performance.

Part of it might just be that C.J. Stroud and Anthony Richardson were that good. Still, Levis acquitted himself well enough to make the second exec theorize that teams might be intentionally quiet on him, in hopes he’ll slip a little.

“I would just say, of all the quarterbacks, he was just as impressive there [at the workout],” he said, adding Levis did well with his team in the interview room. “He showed up in great shape, he’s a really good athlete, he threw it well, he’s got a big arm. I don’t think there’s a lot to nitpick, other than tape from this year. He was really good.”

The first exec, who initially raised his name to me, did say that the combine is the type of environment Levis should thrive in. “In pregame, you look at him, watch him drop back, see the ball come out of his hand, it’s like he’s a pro,” he said, recalling a live exposure he had going to one of Levis’s games in the fall.

“When the lights come on, and the bullets are flying, he just doesn’t look the same,” he continued. “Relative to his physical traits, it just doesn’t come together—there are moments where he makes a great throw, or there’s a drive where he makes a great play, but on the whole there’s just something missing. … He’s super talented, in the end, I see him be a Jay Cutler-ish type.”

Which is to say, just like Stroud and Richardson are, Levis is pretty interesting.

• One leftover from my conversation with the Bears brass on Saturday—at one point, I asked Matt Eberflus about maintaining his relationship with Justin Fields through all the speculation about what Chicago will do with the first pick, and at quarterback in general. And I thought his answer was worth sharing.

“It's important to keep relationships going,” he said. “I obviously spent a lot of time in the quarterback room last year, pretty much 90% of my time on that side. So I think that during the course of the week, when the players are in, I was there, and that was on purpose. That was to build relationships and learn the offense and help those guys over there, I think that's ongoing with all players.

“I know that's obviously a very impactful position and what's going on with our draft status and all that. But I don't look at it very different. I'm going to talk to the guys, assume everybody's coming back, everybody's going to be here, guys that are under contract, I'm just going to continue to build those relationships.”

To that end, Eberlus and GM Ryan Poles have done their best to keep Fields abreast of everything as the offseason progresses—and as they plan for a 2023 season that certainly looks it’ll see the Ohio State product in place as their starting quarterback.

• The league moving now to fully reinstate Jaguars receiver Calvin Ridley is a big plus for the team and its new acquisition. It means the Florida native can get in the building, meet his new coaches and start working with his strength coaches.

It’s easy to forget what Ridley is capable of three years removed from his breakout year of 2020, when he took the baton from Julio Jones and became the Falcons’ No. 1 wideout. As I’ve said a few times here, I think this deal has a chance to look like a steal for a Jaguars team, and offense, that’s very clearly on the way up.

• Brock Purdy is set to have surgery Wednesday, and that means the six-month best-case recovery clock would start on March 8, and get him back around Sept. 8. The 2023 season kicks off on Sept. 7, and the first Sunday of the season is Sept. 10. That would explain why the 49ers are going to have to pursue some veteran insurance at the position, regardless of how good they feel about Purdy or how much progress Trey Lance could make over the course of this offseason.

I’d expect they’ll look at the more affordable tier (Mayfield, Dalton, etc.) of the market.

• Soon enough, we’ll have an answer on which franchise tag Lamar Jackson is assigned.

• And, finally, the most underrated development of Monday: the return of the old Houston Oilers uniforms. The Titans will wear them for a home game next year, which is every bit as good as the news we got earlier that Bucco Bruce is coming back too.