Carr and completed air yards—a few plays from the Bears game

In light of Loomis’ comment about wanting to increase completed air yards (we currently rank 22nd), I wanted to highlight a few plays where we left some yards on the table for one reason or another. Against the Bears, Carr had the 7th lowest intended air yards in a game this season, with only six of his 35 attempts going 10+ yards downfield.

Daniel and Brees already broke down the opportunity missed to Shaheed on the pylon route, so here are a few others.

3rd Quarter - 15:00 - 1st and 10

Everyone was asking where Michael Thomas was, and he gets open over the middle on this play. Carr locks in on a likely alert route (Johnson) that gets taken away by the CB getting depth. When you lock in on the alert, everything else is late, so Carr scrambles to salvage the play.

View attachment RPReplay_Final1699323276.mov

3rd Quarter - 11:52 - 3rd & 8

Here the pressure limits any real opportunities, although it appears Carr is going to check this one down. Thomas again breaks open over the middle but the play probably has a low chance of success with Carr not even having enough time to dump it off.

View attachment RPReplay_Final1699323598.mov

3rd Quarter - 3:27 - 1st and 10

Here pressure limits Carr from doing much, you can see both Hill and Bowden get open downfield but Carr is already running away from inside pressure. Better protection may have helped, but at the same time Carr seemed to want to go to Shaheed on this play.

I like the design with AK motioning out like it will be a swing screen with Bowden and Hill as blockers, but both receivers get vertical and find open space that we don’t get to take advantage of.

View attachment RPReplay_Final1699323706.mov

3rd quarter - 2:00 - 3rd & 10

Another play foiled by pressure. Hill gets about as wide open as you can get, but Carr has to get rid of the ball early to Johnson, setting up a punt.

View attachment RPReplay_Final1699324030.mov

4th quarter - 9:46 - 3rd and 4

In this one everybody gets picked up, but Carr locks in on Thomas’ 1v1 concept to get rid of the ball quickly. If he reads the dagger concept, you can see the big play opportunity we miss right in the middle of the field.

View attachment RPReplay_Final1699324721.mov

4th quarter - 3:52 - 3rd and 9

Here Carr has time again but locks in on Michael Thomas. Olave is headed for a TD if Carr doesn’t lock on to a route that would have been short of the sticks anyway.

View attachment RPReplay_Final1699325100.mov

In all, it’s a combination of issues, from Carr locking onto a receiver or not trusting his protection, to Carr just not having any protection. The plays are getting receivers open, but we need to continue to grow as an offense to hit them. Fans are right, we should have won by more points, but these videos show we likely left a lot of points on the field when the chances were there.