Even though Derek Carr announced his intent to retire from the NFL last month, paperwork had to be filed before it became official. That paperwork has been filed, as the New Orleans Saints placed Carr on the reserve/retired list, officially ending Carr's NFL career.
As John Sigler of Saints Wire pointed out, the Saints could have finalized the retirement as early as June 2nd but there wasn't an immediate need to do so. Some important information to take away from this is that the Saints won't save any money this year but will save $30 million in 2026, which is a massive amount of money, especially for a team that's been in cap hell for so long.
With Carr officially out the door, what's next at quarterback in New Orleans? That question remains to be answered but it's not as though the Saints don't have options to ponder.
What direction will Saints take at QB now that Derek Carr's retirement is official?
The options for New Orleans as of this writing are Tyler Shough, Spencer Rattler, and Jake Haener. The Saints spent a second-round pick on Shough in this year's draft but he spent seven years with three different colleges and was considered a reach by many of the draft experts.
As for the other two guys, they've spent at least one year on the Saints' roster but clearly didn't show enough to prevent NOLA from drafting a quarterback early on. Haener was a fourth-round pick in 2023 but didn't play at all until this past season and Rattler, despite at one time being a highly touted prospect, didn't wow enough to win the starting job full-time.
Another option for the Saints to take is to try and add a veteran with one potential name being Kirk Cousins. For this to happen, the Falcons would have to release Cousins and truthfully, this move just doesn't feel like the right direction for New Orleans but weirder things have happened.
Signing Carr in the first place was a strange decision by the Saints given their salary cap issues and the fact that Carr hadn't won any meaningful games during his time with the Raiders. While the experiment ended sooner than most Saints fans predicted it would, it still ended the way most probably figured it would, which was in disappointing fashion.
That being said, the retirement is official and now the Saints have to figure out what comes next at the most important position in the sport.
