Derek Carr won’t take a pay cut for 2025 but willing to restructure to help the cap

There are ways to cut Carr outright and still get under but it would painful to a degree. You'd have to restructure nearly everyone on a 2nd contract, convince some older players to take pay cuts to stay, and cut some under performers. And you get some of that cap space back once Carr signs with another team because of offsets so theoretically you could convert salary to option bonuses for most of your restructures that don't kick in until the beginning of the season. By that time Carr would have signed with another team giving some room for the options.

In the end these are decision that are going to have to be made by the new HC. Hard to know if the new guy is okay with keeping Carr so he can weed out some of the older players or if he would rather move on from Carr now, keep older players for 2025, and then have a full reset in 2026.