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

St. Widge said
I think we can do that by 2026 if they don't do any dumb deals between now and then. I think it comes down to does a new coach want to give Rattler a shot to be the franchise QB knowing that it could end up turning into another 5 or 5 win season or does he want to take a shot at some level of success in the 8 to 9 win range with Carr?

If I were the new HC, I'd move on from Carr and keep the aging vets until 2026 so you can do a full reset in 2026 with full knowledge of whether or not Rattler is the future. If he isn't you can draft a QB or move up for a QB. If he is, you draft to build around him.

But, I can understand why a new coach might want to try to have moderate success in year 1 in hopes that it buys him more time to rebuild.

You and I are on the same page on all of this. The big fear is the dumb deals. I feel like we used to sign a few cheap mid tier higher upside / backups on other teams type players every year and now it seems like they find it more important to get bigger names (looking at you Derek Carr and Chase Young) that make too much and had under performed on their last teams. As though we could get more out of the players those teams couldn't get. There haven't been a lot of examples of that working, but the few that have (Brees, Vilma, DD) makes them keep trying.