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

TenTwo said

I think his contract is fine. The question is, are we in a position in 2025 that it makes sense to pay it. I personally believe this is the time to do a hard reset and trade off players for draft picks.

I would love to trade Carr and his contract to a team who needs him and get draft picks in return. Then, you let Rattler show what he can do. He either proves to be QB of the future or you struggle and draft Arch Manning (or hot QB flavor of the month) after a rebuild season. You take the extra draft picks and try to build a new young core.

I don’t know if Carr would be open to trade and I don’t know how much it would help our cap if any…but it seems like the best possible outcome.

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A trade would be better than a cut or doing nothing. Saves you about 10mil. You still have to restructure the whole team for the most part but at least gives you a bit of wiggle room after you do.

It's not an easy sell to trade either. He's in the back end, more expensive part of his contract. Basically it's 45mil/yr for 2 years for another team. Not horrible but it won't be easy.

The best course is to just restructure him. It gives you more room to properly handle players who aren't playing or won't be playing next year. He'll at least give you a return on the money. Other guys you'd be forced to restructure are out of gas. You can cut him in 2026 and be about 30 mil under the cap if you want to (before June 1st). All while keeping your other restructures modest.