As someone who has covered Derek Carr for a long time, I always thought he would thrive in a Shanahan scheme. Many quarterbacks do, but Carr seemed to have every trait that coaches from that tree desire in spades. He’s a quick processor, he can throw lasers into the middle of the field, he’s mobile enough to be effective on bootlegs and he can throw the deep post.
Advertisement The two biggest concerns with Carr in the New Orleans Saints’ version of this offense are that he’s on his fifth different offensive coordinator in five seasons and New Orleans’ offense line was expected to be one of the worst in the league. Carr has struggled under pressure his entire career, so the potential for disaster was there. But we’re two games into the season and the Saints offense and Carr lead the league in nearly every major statistical category.
They are the No. 1 offense in DVOA (Defense-adjusted Value Over Average) and EPA (expected points added) per play and lead the league in points per drive (4.33) by nearly a full point.
After seven different offensive coordinators in his career, it looks like Carr has finally found a home in Klint Kubiak’s scheme. Though Carr has embraced the challenge of taking on the burden of responsibilities at the line of scrimmage by changing protections and trying to get into the perfect plays through audibles, he no longer has to. Some of that exists in Kubiak’s offense, but it’s more binary.
“(Carr’s) been freed up a little bit in ter.