If Ward or even Sanders would fall to 9 (they absolutely won't), I might would take a chance on them and start the re-build with a potential star QB on a cheap 5 year rookie deal. THAT would more than make up for the dead-cap hit trading or releasing Carr would cost. Not sure about either of those guys, but I've been wrong about QBs before. I think we all have to be honest.
Not to make this a Carr/Rattler post, but need it for context. Carr gives us the best chance to win games in 2025, Rattler has some good and bad tape (albeit with a weak supporting cast and very little development reps during the season) and the incoming coach can draw his own conclusions. I'm good with sacrificing 2025 if there's a real plan in place building for 2026 and beyond.
If the new coach wants to draft HIS guy a 'la Sean Payton in Denver and then cut-bait with Carr and take the cap-hit now a 'la Sean Payton in Denver (Russel Wilson) then I could get behind it. Yeah, we need WAY more pieces than QB, but I would understand the philosophy. Especially if we went play-maker TE and/or WR with whichever pick we didn't use to get the QB. Give the new QB a friend at ball catcher to grow up with. I think I'd rather pick up a QB with our 2nd pick or if we get lucky and the guy our new coach likes slides to the 3rd (also very unlikely). Very few were high on Nix. Sean Payton was high on him and all that matters is that the early results say he was right. Lamar Jackson fell all the way to the very end of the 1st round and most of the other 30 teams gotta have heartburn over that. I was horribly wrong about him too. So maybe I'm wrong about Milroe. Maybe everybody's wrong about Howard, Dart, Leonard, etc...
Think about what turned Washington, Cinci, Denver, KC, Buffalo, Houston, LAC, and Miami from being different levels of schedule fodder into teams that are admittedly different levels of relevant.
There's more to it that THAT of course, but any team that hits drafting a rookie QB is almost automatically back in business within a couple years. At least they don't fall into the aimless losers category.