The Totaling Of Derek Car
Say your goodbyes, folks. This is probably the last time I ever draw Derek Car. One of my most cursed running gags.
A month or so before the draft we got word that Derek Carr might not play football in 2025. His shoulder is pretty messed up, and he needed major surgery to fix it. This suddenly put the Saints into QB draft discussions. They would contribute greatly to the Shedeur Sanders drama by making the first truly questionable QB draft choice of the draft, taking Tyler Shough at pick 40. The pick out of Louisville was suspect at the time and frankly seems even weirder now. You have to assume the Saints knew this was coming before any of us did.
Derek Carr, as of last week, is going to retire. Whatever damage he did to his arm is too much. Derek Carr is totaled. The Saints will recuperate 30 million dollars in insurance money applied to their cap. Carr’s career has come to an end. He will fade into the junkyard a guy we all remember spontaneously in a decade when we try to remember who QB’d the Raiders in the 2010’s for a trivia party. He will always have that one year he looked like an MVP candidate until he shattered his leg. He will also always have the fact that he looked like he wore guyliner. He will always be the brother to David Carr. He will always be the guy who absolutely loved being a Raider until Josh McDaniels ruined him. He will always have the first two games of 2024, the last time he was good, before the final injuries piled on.
To be honest I’m writing this post skeptical this is actually the end. The Saints are in such a dire cap situation that I believe they likely pushed Carr into the retirement bin just to save the money. Carr might be too injured to play next year but the man was a baller willing to give his all to the game, and he’s only 34, which is old but not decrepit. Carr was a bad signing by New Orleans in the first place. They probably held him at gunpoint in the hospital and asked if he could play, he said he wanted to, and they cocked the gun. Fuck that probably would have been a better comic.
Well now the Saints QB room is Tyler Shough, Jake Haener, and Spencer Rattler. My impression of this situation is that the Saints will be looking for a QB next year. I’ve checked Saints circles and they are already sniffing the Shough cocaine. I guess they have to, this year will likely not be much fun to watch.
Carr will sign with the Raiders in 2026. Whether that is a 1-day contract or a 1-year contract remains to be seen.
If there’s one thing that helps me feel better about the Falcons’ QB situation, at least they’re not like the Saints!
I’m gonna miss this cursed image though. It was such a good gag.
Farewell Derek Car, may you never be hit by a blue shell in retirement,
I’ll miss the Derek Car gag.
During my senior year of high school, just after the Texans’ inaugural season, I was having dinner at this grill/American food restaurant with my high school buddies when David and Derek Carr (who was in middle school at the time) came in and sat two tables away. One of my friends decided to loudly talk about how the Texans should have drafted Joey Harrington, loud enough so the Carrs could overhear. As a dumb teenager, I thought it was funny at the time (I was also a Harrington backer in both the 2001 Heisman race and the 2002 Texans’ draft… like I said, I was a dumb teenager).
Go ahead and make that other comic. No one will be upset if you make a second joke about a subject.
Derek really helped Dave learn how to draw cars.
SAINTS FANS JUICED OFF THAT SHOUGHCAINE (I know it’s pronounced shuck but it’s too perfect)
Unsolicited suggestion: David Car’s right front wheel should be sticking out at an odd angle and dragging along the ground as he’s towed…
As a Saints fan, snorting the Shough sugar is all we got right now.
Even if Carr was still technically healthy enough to play, he would have been out for much if not the whole season this year due to the surgery and recovery, and he would still at best be mediocre. So yeah, you start the rookie, let the RBs do most of the work while the new QB acclimates to NFL-level play, and if he is as smart as I’ve read, he may improve our W/L ratio enough to start getting us into the playoffs simply by being a game manager. Or we’ll suck until we can score Arch Manning and ride that hotness to the promised land, either way works.
It’s a shame that his career was wasted by lousy franchises.
I think Carr had a similar trajectory as his brother. A lot of “what ifs?” He looked solid under Del Rio but never had a competent HC after. He seemed like he could’ve been a consistent top 10 or top 5 QB with the right coaching and team, but rarely had either. He still had a decent career in spite of all that.
Farewell Derek Car, putting the ‘ow’ in Ka-Chow.
*Sad Kachow noises*
Shout out to my frat brother who got a Derek Carr Raiders tattoo