By New Orleans addressed its biggest offseason need in signing Carr. The Saints offense, one loaded with talent at the skill positions, struggled mightily to score points due to its limitations at quarterback, and it culminated in a 7-10 record despite boasting a top-five defense.
Carr expressed his excitement to lead an “explosive” offense with several key pieces already in place, and that Saints wideout Michael Thomas was another component pulling him toward New Orleans.
“The first time I talked to him on the phone I don’t think he wanted me to get off the phone,” said Carr, who also disclosed his discussions with Saints greats Drew Brees and Archie Manning before making his decision. “I really enjoyed talking to him. I told Mickey (Loomis) you talk to Mike Thomas you feel like you two can go face the world. I told my wife when I got off the phone and just asked ‘why are you smiling?’ and I was like, I love this guy; he’s so competitive and I think the energy that he brings it’s a very exciting time to throw him the football. So, when he started recruitment talking to me and all that he wasn’t even trying to recruit me he was like, ‘When are we getting to work? We are wasting time.’ And I was like, I feel the same way but we’ll get there and I think our relationship has grown through this process and I look forward to making it stronger.”
Another factor for Carr was the current construct of the Saints defense, a unit that recently shut out the QB in Week 8 of last season.
“One thing for me when making this decision, you know, all you can do is look at past resumes,” Carr said. “But once I knew when you sign with a team none of the stats or anything in the past matter. Right now, we don’t have any rankings or any wins. The most important thing to me was the character of the men in the room, not really the ranking and that kind of thing. When I talk to the defensive guys here and I’ve known a lot of them for a lot of years, but they are grown men. They know how to handle success and hard times. They compete at everything they do and this past year when I would say us (Raiders) but ya’ll beat our faces here at the Super Dome.
“You can feel the physicality that they played with. You can feel the energy, the brotherhood, you can feel those things and I was so pissed after the game, excuse my language but I was like, ‘Wow.’ What an opportunity it is to make that one of my choices now. But again, the rankings and stats, they would be the first ones to tell you that none of that stuff matters. Anything I’ve done in the past or they’ve done in the past doesn’t matter, it’s going to be what we’re going to do. The main thing to me was the character and type of men that are in that locker room and the type of men was what was so intriguing to me. They are grown men. Like I said, the physicality they played with and style of play I know DA (Dennis Allen) preaches, that was something that fired me up.”
