Derek Carr practiced today.

I look at the Carr situation kind of like Russell Wilson last year. New team with a bad coach that made him look washed and everyone thought he was done. This year while the yards aren’t eye popping, Wilson is playing very efficient and Payton, after a rough start has turned things around.

I think many of us here agreed with proper coaching Payton would have turned some of these losses into wins. Competent coaching and play calling matters. If Payton was coaching we beat the Packers even with Winston coming in, we beat the Texans, Vikings, and Falcons. I see us at 9-3 and we aren’t even having this conversation about Carr being awful and blowing up the coaching staff. I don’t think Carr would be lighting the world on fire his first year still but he’d be doing well enough to not warrant the amount of hateful comments about his performance many users are making towards him because Payton would be coaching him up and the mistakes would be less.

I know Carr hasn’t looked great and at times made some really head scratching plays but I definitely am not ready to throw the towel in on him yet. Does that mean if we are in position to grab a QB in the draft to not do it because we have Carr? No. We still grab one, get a new coach, OC, and see how things can roll next year with a coach and OC who know what they are doing. If Carr shows little to no improvement next year then we’ve got our replacement QB in the building.