New Orleans Saints quarterback Derek Carr is one of the hottest commodities on the trade market and could find a new team once Philadelphia Eagles offensive coordinator Kellen Moore officially becomes the team’s next head coach. After a solid nine seasons with the Raiders, Carr joined the Saints in 2023 but hasn’t been more than a league-average starter in that time. While he’s not a liability, the quarterback hasn’t been enough to carry a flawed roster to the playoffs, and some believe the cash-strapped Saints could finally embrace a long-overdue rebuild and send their starting quarterback to a new team.
According to Bleacher Report‘s Gary Davenport, that team should be the Pittsburgh Steelers. After going 10-7 with the duo of Russell Wilson and Justin Fields, the NFL analyst believes the Steelers could look for outside help to the game’s most important position. Derek Carr won’t accept a pay cut and has a no-trade clause, but Davenport believes both issues can be resolved in order to get a deal done.
“Carr’s willingness to restructure (and waive his no-trade clause) could be swayed by the opportunity to play for a contender. And as the Steelers showed in 2024, they don’t need an elite quarterback to be one.”
Saints, Steelers Could Agree to A Derek Carr Trade
Derek Carr is not an elite quarterback by any stretch of the imagination, but the four-time Pro Bowler would probably be the best Steelers quarterback since the pre-injury version of Ben Roethlisberger threw for 5,129 yards in 2018. Starting and appearing in 10 games, Derek Carr completed 67.7% of his passes for 2,145 yards, 15 touchdowns, and five interceptions. He finished the season ranked eighth in PFF grade (85.9) and 14th in EPA/play. He’s no superstar, but he comfortably beat out Russell Wilson and Justin Fields in just about every quarterback metric out there.
Nobody knows exactly what the Steelers will do at the quarterback position. After starting the year with Fields playing for an injured Wilson, the one-time Super Bowl champion took over and helped guide the team to a 10-3 record. However, Wilson and the Steelers collapsed down the stretch, losing their final four regular season games before an embarrassing playoff loss to the division-rival Baltimore Ravens. While most expect one of Wilson or Fields to return, targeting Derek Carr in a trade could make sense for a team stuck in purgatory.
Would the Saints Do This?
The Saints have perhaps the league’s worst combination of talent and financial liberty. Years of kicking the can down the road have resulted in an unsustainable situation, as the team is $54 million over the projected salary cap and cannot possibly address all the issues with the old, flawed roster. New Orleans is long overdue for a rebuild, but will General Manager Mickey Loomis accept the inevitable and blow it up?
Historically speaking, the answer is probably not. Loomis recently referred to Carr as a top-10 quarterback, and while he might have done that to try and inflate his trade value, he clearly thinks highly of the passer. Additionally, the Saints have been restructuring deals to go all-in for the better part of a decade, so there’s no reason to think they’ll stop now. Maximizing the final years of the Drew Brees Era made all the sense in the world, but from the outside looking in, this was never a wise strategy with Carr, Jameis Winston, and Andy Dalton under center, yet they did it anyway.
If the Saints truly believe Spencer Rattler has a future in this league, they’ll probably trade Derek Carr. If they don’t, then they’ll probably run it back with Carr and continue to fight for their first playoff appearance since Brees called it a career.
