Saints head coach Kellen Moore introductory press conference, media updates, February 13, 2025 (13 Viewers)

[MikeyF]

Can you point out any personal attacks on Carr? Might want to have your ducks in a row before you call out the mods for something that isn't actually happening.

In regards to people wanting Carr gone but not our older vets on defense? Do you actually know that? Why would guys like Mathieu, Davis, and Jordan be brought up as it relates to discussion about Carr? I personally would like to move on from all of them, and my post history would show that.

It has happened in a lot of post about Carr.
You can also find the same type of post about Mickey Loomis...

 

[Nolan]

It has happened in a lot of post about Carr.
You can also find the same type of post about Mickey Loomis...

This board is well moderated. Again, I'd have some substance before you call out the staff.

 

[ELLIASJWILLIAMS]

I actually had a similar thought, that the best solution may indeed be to approach Carr about a small extension to ease cap burdens while giving him a little extra money upfront, but that would create an absolute fan mutiny of which we have never seen. There would need to be armed guards over on Airline Dr. if the words “Carr” and “extension” are ever meshed together.

Not saying it’s the right move, just saying it’s a thought process worth exploring. An “unorthodox restructuring” extension, so to speak.

Push off the decision, and hell, maybe even get his replacement in the building and end up later with the world’s most expensive backup, but I do think there is a way to do this without essentially voluntarily tanking an off-season with a new head coach trying to make his mark.

Fan outrage goes away when you’re winning. As Bonchie once pointed out the fans dislike Carr so much because his presence hasn’t resulted in more wins.

Sentiments would change

 

[Elvis]

The one issue with the "tear it down" people is that you are probably guaranteeing that your first season as a new HC will result in a very poor record.
If things don't go as planned & you start putting a couple of bad seasons back to back, you will be fired & you will be back to being an OC...

I really don't get all of the people wanting to cut Carr not saying anything about getting rid of the older players on our D that did nothing to help us win last year...

Carr isn't responsible for our horrible season last year. You can really blame it on DA for not have a descent backup that could come in & win games if Carr was injured... but I also understand that Carr had not missed many games in his career due to injuries.



It is disappointing that our moderators have allowed so many personal attacks on Derek Carr, which is supposed to be against SaintsReport.com Guidelines...

A quick refresher concerning our Posting Guidelines...

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I'm gonna call BS on this. The HUGE majority of people that want Carr gone want to do it because of the cost for performance ratio and what his contract limits the team from doing with the rest of the roster. It's not because they think he's the worst QB in NFL history or that they don't like him personally. I haven't seen anyone posting in these off season threads that Carr is "trash", "stinks" or any of the other things listed in the TOS. I've seen a lot that say he's simply not worth the 18% of the cap he's taking up when there are serious issues with the remaining 52 man roster.

 

[MikeyF]

I'm gonna call BS on this. The HUGE majority of people that want Carr gone want to do it because of the cost for performance ratio and what his contract limits the team from doing with the rest of the roster. It's not because they think he's the worst QB in NFL history or that they don't like him personally. I haven't seen anyone posting in these off season threads that Carr is "trash", "stinks" or any of the other things listed in the TOS. I've seen a lot that say he's simply not worth the 18% of the cap he's taking up when there are serious issues with the remaining 52 man roster.

Our team has been limited by the salary cap long before Carr became a Saint.
It is the way our FO has been doing business for years now.

Carr's contact the first 2 years actually was team friendly except for the fact that he only played in 10 games last year.
You always leave that out of all of your post!



His stats as a Saint aren't as poor as you make them out to be!


His contact in 2025 & 2026 are a problem...

 

[BoxerJoe]

Fan outrage goes away when you’re winning. As Bonchie once pointed out the fans dislike Carr so much because his presence hasn’t resulted in more wins.

Sentiments would change

14-12 in games that he started and either finished or got knocked out while losing. That includes having Dennis Allen as head coach and a new system/OC (one being Pete Carmichael) each year. Add in all the team's injuries (including obviously playing hurt some himself) and I don't think .538 is bad. Obviously, we, as fans, want playoff deserving records, but there were just way too many things that went wrong for the team to achieve that either of the past two seasons.

 

[Elvis]

Our team has been limited by the salary cap long before Carr became a Saint.
It is the way our FO has been doing business for years now.

Carr's contact the first 2 years actually was team friendly except for the fact that he only played in 10 games last year.
You always leave that out of all of your post!



His stats as a Saint aren't as poor as you make them out to be!


His contact in 2025 & 2025 are a problem...

His contract for the first two years were NOT team friendly. If you made your screen shot a touch larger you'd see that he's already been paid $2.7m in base salary, $57.3m in prorated signing bonuses, and is owed $10m guaranteed for a roster bonus that vested last year. That is $70 million over the first two years of his contract which nobody should consider to be team friendly.

His cap number and what he's been paid are not the same thing and should never been confused as such.

 

[MikeyF]

So

His contract for the first two years were NOT team friendly. If you made your screen shot a touch larger you'd see that he's already been paid $2.7m in base salary, $57.3m in prorated signing bonuses, and is owed $10m guaranteed for a roster bonus that vested last year. That is $70 million over the first two years of his contract which nobody should consider to be team friendly.

His cap number and what he's been paid are not the same thing and should never been confused as such.

You could make the same argument for most veteran starting QB in the NFL...
Even at $35 million a year that is far from terrible for a veteran QB with his stats.
The way the Saints do their contacts isn't a whole lot different that the rest of the NFL..
His contract for the first 2 years is nowhere near as bad as many on this site make it out to be!

It is 2025 & 2026 that are problems.

 

[Elvis]

So

You could make the same argument for most veteran starting QB in the NFL...
Even at $35 million a year that is far from terrible for a veteran QB with his stats.
The way the Saints do their contacts isn't a whole lot different that the rest of the NFL..
His contract for the first 2 years is nowhere near as bad as many on this site make it out to be!

It is 2025 & 2026 that are problems.

You called it "team friendly" and at $35m average per year it's simply not team friendly. No need to shift what you're saying now.

The next two years are $90m in new money or $45 average per year which when taking account of the increase in salary cap isn't really any different in new cash. IMO, it's still too much for what he provides and doesn't allow us to fix other problems that the roster has.

The biggest problem is his cap number which is growing because of kicking his signing bonuses out to the years where he new money is also coming due. That isn't his fault and I don't criticize him for his contract, it's DA and Loomis' fault and it's Loomis' job to get it fixed.

 

[MikeyF]

You called it "team friendly" and at $35m average per year it's simply not team friendly. No need to shift what you're saying now.

The next two years are $90m in new money or $45 average per year which when taking account of the increase in salary cap isn't really any different in new cash. IMO, it's still too much for what he provides and doesn't allow us to fix other problems that the roster has.

The biggest problem is his cap number which is growing because of kicking his signing bonuses out to the years where he new money is also coming due. That isn't his fault and I don't criticize him for his contract, it's DA and Loomis' fault and it's there job to get it fixed.

I'm not shifting... If Carr's contract is displayed this way so is everyone else's.


Which means it is still cap friendly!

 

[SoggyBottomBoy]

You called it "team friendly" and at $35m average per year it's simply not team friendly. No need to shift what you're saying now.

The next two years are $90m in new money or $45 average per year which when taking account of the increase in salary cap isn't really any different in new cash. IMO, it's still too much for what he provides and doesn't allow us to fix other problems that the roster has.

The biggest problem is his cap number which is growing because of kicking his signing bonuses out to the years where he new money is also coming due. That isn't his fault and I don't criticize him for his contract, it's DA and Loomis' fault and it's Loomis' job to get it fixed.

The way I look at it is that the contract price per year is about right for his talent level and performance. To your point, it’s the way the payments have been structured. It's backloaded with big balloon payments. The price we paid for the house was fair, it's the way we financed it for early, easy payments that has caught up to us.

 

[Elvis]

I'm not shifting... If Carr's contract is displayed this way so is everyone else's.


Which means it is still cap friendly!

Anyone can make things look good by leaving out the bad parts. You left out the bad parts to manipulate how the actual cost of his contract is seen. That's all I'm saying.

 

[Elvis]

The way I look at it is that the contract price per year is about right for his talent level and performance. To your point it the way the payments have been structured. It's backloaded with big balloon payments. The price we paid for the house was fair, it's the way we financed it for early, easy payments that has caught up to us.

Analogies, those are fun.

To take the house analogy further, we got a low early payment in exchange for a higher later payment on a house we couldn't otherwise afford but never took into account that we couldn't afford both the high later payments and the repairs when the furnace broke and the roof started leaking in several spots. We simply bought too much house in 2023 and now need to move to a smaller house while we pay off the credit cards we ran up to pay for the furnace and the roof.

 

[IceHot]

Moore said he wasn't the biggest, fastest, strongest QB, knew he would need to be the smartest.

I think that's why we so often see successful coaches who had short or terrible NFL careers. They weren't talented enough to rely on that for a career, so they had to literally be the smartest guy in the room and at practice just to have the opportunity to get on the field.

That translates extremely well to coaching.

Well he doesnt appear to be a Norm Van Brocklin (that's a good thing)

 

[IceHot]

That's just a part of what Moore said as well.

I just listened to the whole press conference for a second time. This is the complete flow of questions about Carr and Moore's answer. It's not the entire transcript, but it's an accurate summary.

Q: What he thought about Carr when viewing his tape and do you view him as the week 1 starter for the Saints with Moore as head coach?​

​

Moore: Carr is a tremendous QB in this league. He's a starter in this league. He's a premiere player in this league. I'm real excited to team up with him and go through the process... (he went on to say he looks forward to going through that process with all of the players).​

Several minutes later Triplet asked:

Q: Follow up on Derek, do you view that as having a decision to make at QB or do you view it as Derek Carr is the QB?​

​

Moore: I view it as Derek Carr is a tremendous starting QB in this league. We're fortunate to have him and we're excited to go through this process, you know, as we build this roster together. Again, I meeting these guys for the first time in the last few days. We're excited to meet more of them and this will be a lot of fun.​

I don't see anything at all "damning" that Moore said about Carr. One of the things I like about Moore is he seems more like a collaborator than a dictator. Even if Moore was deadset on Carr being the starter, I don't think he's going to say that in a press conference before he's actually had a chance to discuss it with Carr, because he knows Carr has a say in the matter. I think it's pretty clear that he would comfortable and confident in having Carr as his starter.

So that's the full context of the questions and answers about Carr that Underhill left out of his tweet that you quoted.

You also skipped the part about him looking forward to reminiscing with Derek Carr about his Fresno State games.