New Orleans Saints quarterback Derek Carr feels he’s going to have a resurgence with his new team.
In a news conference on Saturday, Carr talked about his nine seasons with the Las Vegas Raiders and how he was convinced to join the Saints, with who he recently inked a four-year, $150 million contract.
Carr is in the middle of career crossroads after failing to make the playoffs for a number of seasons with Las Vegas, the team that drafted him and who he later had a falling out with this past off-season
The 31-year-old will have the chance at a fresh start after making his fourth Pro Bowl this year.
“I just get to come in and show my work ethic, and really prove it again. … I didn’t plan on or dream of it finishing that way. That’s for sure,” he said on Saturday in the press conference. “I understood the business side of it and why things were happening, all that. I mean, I get it. But it hurt.
Carr feels that his exit from the Raiders lit a “fire” in him.Sean Gardner/Getty ImagesFor me as a competitor, I wanted to finish with my teammates. … It lit a fire in me, that I’ve always had, but it just made it hot. It gave me this excitement.”
Carr faced contract purgatory after the Raiders planned on dealing him off in a trade.
The Saints met with Carr in February, while he was still a member of the Raiders, and hosted him and his wife for two days in New Orleans, according to ESPN.
Carr was later released and signed with the Saints after fielding other potential destinations like the Jets and the Panthers, who recently traded up for the No. 1 overall pick.
Carr will have plenty of offensive weapons at his disposal in New Orleans, such as receiver Michael Thomas, who won the 2019 NFL Offensive Player of the Year, and tight end Juwan Johnson, who posted seven touchdowns for the Saints last season.
Thomas, in particular, was instrumental in wooing Carr over to New Orleans.
“He wasn’t even trying to recruit me, he was just like, ‘When are we getting to work? We’re wasting time, time is ticking,’” Carr said about his conversations with Thomas. “I was like, ‘Dude, I’m the same way. We’ll get there.’”
Carr played for the Raiders for the first nine seasons of his career.Ronald Martinez/Getty Images Saints head coach Dennis Allen, who previously coached Carr on the Raiders, also spoke glowingly about reuniting with the four-time Pro Bowler, saying the veteran signal-caller “wanted to come here.”
“I don’t think it’s just a veteran quarterback. I think it’s the veteran quarterback we wanted,” Allen said. “I don’t know that there was this thing, well, we got to go out and find any veteran quarterback. We wanted to find the quarterback that we wanted. Like I said before, we clearly identified that Derek was our No. 1 target. And we [went] out and got him.”
