[Chron] Bob McNair: Carr's future remains in limbo

I guess that will happen when the coach doesn't take the ball out of your hands.

 

I don't know about that. I'm not down with those posts pinning 4 or 5 losses on DCarr, but his four-quarter performance cost us arguably at least one or two this year.

Heck, even the greatest QBs make mistakes at key points in games every now and then that seem to "lose the game". (I don't believe any one play loses or wins a game--if so, why play the other 59 minutes?)

I was so down with DC after that stretch. Telling folks "I told you so", etc. Even in the 2-14 year, I looked back on that performance and looked at the o-line and other factors and concluded we had a good QB in a bad system with bad talent (sans AJ of course) and horrific coaching.

This past season, DC convinced me that some (not all, or course) of the blame for the losses and mediocrity is most certainly on his shoulders.

 

Yeah, I don't see either one as a long-term possible solution. (That's also why age doesn't matter to me.) Whether it's Carr or Plummer, I can't see either one being here more than maybe a year or two. If you see Carr as salvagable, that obviously is a reason for keeping Carr.

I keep seeing the last 8 games of this year. To me, that version of Carr is worse than any version of Plummer. Another way I look at it is finances. I think we'd all agree that Carr isn't worth $8MM a year if he was on the open market. If Carr and Plummer are really similar, then Plummer won't get that either. If Plummer really is worth $8MM, then I'd say the thinking is that he has the potential to be notably better.

 

i knew as soon as i submitted my reply, people would jump on that because i didn't clearly express myself: i mean only if carr and plummer were given the same team to play with, and that said team was universally considered good.

and he certainly gave some games away this year, but i'm not sure what you mean by his 4Q performance. seems to me, when he struggled, it wasn;t relegated to just the 4Q.

he may be past the point of no return. but, again, i'd rather pay him $8M than plummer.

i wonder if we'll ever know what happened to david carr. i just went and looked up his game log from 2004. i know the schedule got increasingly harder after week 7; that was certainly a factor. and i know the team was dismantled after that season for reasons i'll never understand. but i still have trouble reconciling how we went from those 7 weeks to this; it makes no sense to me whatsoever.

consider, after 7 games in 04, carr was on pace to put up the following #s:
65.7 comp %; 4,381 yards; 21/11 td/int; 97.1 qb rating. his rankings would have been, respectively, 7th, 4th, 10th [tied]; 6th; 7th. i mean, we're talking about one of the 10 best QBs of that year, easily; maybe top 6-8. oh, and the team was 4-3; a 9-win pace. again, how did we get here?

i guess i'm still investing in that stretch. unlike many, i very nearly discount carr's first 2 years - he was exactly what he should have been: a work in progress. but right on cue, he took off his third year. even after a come-to-earth 2nd half, he had, by any measure, a successful 3rd season (remember, he missed 4-5 games in 03, somewhat hurting his development). and then everything imploded.

he's being recast as a complete bust now, but really, he didn't derail until 2005; same year the team completely derailed, as well. his season this year was disappointing, but i keep running back to something kubiak said on his radio show: carr was never properly coached how to prepare for games from week-to-week. and it made me think: if the guy wasn't taught what i assme is a rather rudimentary element of being an NFL qb, where else did the previous regime fail....

as soon as i heard it, i immediately reconsidered carr - he's no 5-year veteran; he's essentially a rookie, and as such, he had a typical rookie season - lots of ups and downs. i fully expect, if his potential hasn't completely been snuffed out, for him to make a leap this year and quiet a lot of his critics. we'll see...

 

i didn't want to be too exhaustive, and i don't want to imply i think this is by any means definitive, but here are plummer's final 8 ratings as a cardinal in 2002:
54.7; 76.3; 54.2; 12.6; 76.5; 103.6; 80.40; 74.9
imagine being a bronco fan during the 2003 offseason... plummer then posted a 21.7 in his first start as a bronco. yikes. but from there, 129.5; 128.5; 116.9; 78.8; 106.6. he ended the season at 91.2.

'03, of course, was his 6th year as a pro.

and, for ****s and giggles, here're carr's from last year, his fifth:
65.5; 83.8; 85.5; 56.3; 89.0; 29.00; 104.1; 48.2.

 

By "four-quarter performance" (not "fourth quarter performance"), I meant the totality of his performance over the entire game. My bad.

This sums up how I feel about it almost precisely.

By some I'm sure he is. And, if he never comes to be a truly productive NFL QB, then in terms of his draft position that will be a fair assessment.

I agree here as well.

Where I stand on Dave is that after nearly a full season with Kubiak he was still making horrible decisions, had lousy footwork, and wouldn't read defenses; and that every other part of the offense (and defense) has seen significant turnover. The O-Line improved, at the end of the season the running game improved, tight-end play improved, the defense improved--everything got better except Dave. You said, "he may be past the point of no return." I think that is probably true of Houston but maybe not elsewhere. Lots of athletes, for reasons that can't really be found on paper, find themselves after a move. I wish David the best. My opinion is his best will be found in another city. We'll see: I've been wrong about football more often than I've been right.

 

Ding, ding ... How many more TO's could DC have gotten maybe he would have been more consistent and played every game like the NE game. As I said before, yes the team needs upgrades all over the place STILL but every once in a while you need a QB to go out and win a game for you when it's on the line.

Jake has done this in his career a few times. DC to my best recollection was only in the 2003 season vs Jax here with the last second QB sneak.

No one here is calling Jake "the answer." This just in, DC isn't the answer either.

IMHO, Jake can do a better job of giving us better opportunities to win while the Texans groom a future franchise QB, than would Carr.

This division is about to get a lot tougher and stronger and we had better upgrade and improve or else we will get left behind. How do we make this happen? For one, get a seasoned pro 'journeyman' if you will who has proven he can play over one who has talent and tools but sadly has never been able to put them together plus, is not a competitor. DC many times out there looks like a whooped pup, he doesn't fight. He apparently is ok with losing.

Is this the kind of signal you want to send to this clubhouse and locker room?

How long will Dunta and AJ want to put up with this when potentially they can thrive as difference maker pieces on other teams putting those teams over the top?

This is not just about changing QB's, it's about changing a culture of losing.

DC is the poster child whether you like it or not for this culture. QB's either are heroes or goats no in between.

Sorry, Kuby and Smitty won't stand for that. They did not come here to continue our sorry, losing tradition. They came here to turnaround this franchise and build a winner. That means 'bye, DC!'

Plummer as already mentioned many times over, has attained his greatest success when he worked with Kuby in Denver. That means they have chemistry. That means Kuby trusts him while Kuby completely lost faith in DC.

That's why you make this move. Enough said.

 

i would vehemently disagree with this. it was 3/5 of the same awful line as last year with a retired street FA and rookie project manning the other 2 spots. bear in mind, carr's nosedive, at least statistically, coincided with the line's injuries. of the starters during the final 7 weeks of the season (salaam, winston, pitts, weary and mckinney/hogdon), i'd be stunned if more than 2 of those were starters next year. if they are, we're ****ed. it was a bad OL at the start of the year; it was flat-out terrible by season's end.

 

I don't know that there is any sense in giving a young QB the keys to this offense until the OL is a little readier.

I honestly think a lot of David Carr's problems are the sheer quantity of hits he took giving him happy feet and a penchant for dumping off to the back if his primary target isn't immediately open.

I know Carr kind of grudges film room time as "hours away from his family" admirable trait in a man...not so admirable in a starting QB.

I sense that McNair loves the fact Carr is such a family values type. But I think the businessman in him will realize we can't allow that to lengthen Carr's leash much longer.

 

I see where you're coming from, but that's an "on-paper" argument. Watching the games, I had the impression that more often than last year or even the year before DC actually had a little more time to pass the ball. I believe the o-line improved, not because of personnel or talent, but because of a far better scheme and better coaching. Even after the injuries and the o-line wasn't as good, I still thought it was better than last year.

Now, that said, I'm not a seasoned football guy, and my impressions could be just wrong. But, I'd like to hear from more than one guy who knows more than me who would compare this year's o-line performance (not personnel, actual on-field performance) to last year's.

 

Hatemavs4life, good post. You pretty much summed all my thoughts up in one post.

 

I dont think we would get anything of value for carr, not a 1st round pick or anything. We'd have a massive hole at the quarterback with no real free agents, if we trade carr first teams that are trading us a QB are going to have the advantage.

Frankly, we are not in a salary cap situation, this isn't going to be a very strong free agent class. I say we pick up somebody, a vetran, call it open competition and let Carr or whomever win the job. If Carr doesn't get it trade him at seasons end or cut him.

I just think losing him now for nothing when we really had a weak weak weak offensive line and a weak running game. Remember this is the Denver offense that produces all these running back stars, it wasn't til the end of the season that Dayne started playing better. and we won 6 games, thats our second best record to date, it wasn't that horrific. I think the fact we saw New Orleans and Tennessee do so well with their top 3 picks, that we felt the pressure to live up to them, but a rash decision will not always be the best one.

No cap issues yet, no reason to get rid of him. open the competition up, Carr, Sage, and a Vetran to compete.

 

This is what I can't understand. You are still looking at freaking 2004...unbelieveable. He is getting worse every stinking year and yet you still want to pay the guy $8 million. Excuse after excuse for the guy...after 5 years of futility you are ready to treat him like a god*mn rookie again even though he should have got better this season under Kubiak not worse. The guy flat out sucks. I don't care what arguments you want to bring up, I watched the guy play the position all year and he played it horribly and I don't care if its you, Ric, who suits up behind center as long as isn't freaking Carr. I mean 8 games of good, not great play compared to 70 games of utter suckitude.
Vent over.

 

we'd be fortunate to get a first day draft pick for him. but thats his value. it happens to be indicative of his play on the field, too.

The only potential trade that I know of, right now, is the one to try and get Jake Plummer. And frankly the Broncos need to get rid of him as much as we need to get him. We may have to give upa pick one round higher than we otherwise would, but that would also happen if there is another team interested as well. You just don't see NFL teams overpay that much....which is why we won't get anything of significance for Carr.

Why keep him just to have him for another year? Because he may get better? Sure, and maybe that final growth spurt I'm waiting for will happen and I'll sprout up to 6'8.

If Carr stays he will either all of a sudden turn into a good to great quarterback (<5% chance), or continue to suck or be extremely mediocre (>95% chance).

Great free agent quarterbacks almost never exist. Drew Brees is the exception, by a long shot. Why do you expect better quarterbacks to be available next year? Will the 2008 quarterback draft class be a lot better? Even if so, still why keep Carr?

Even less of a reason to keep him. Trade him for a 5th round pick, take a specialist pass rusher, or return man, or fullback and maybe that player could turn into something useful. Trade for Jake Plummer by giving up a pick in next year's draft - maybe 4th round - what is Jake Plummer's draft value?? Pick up a quarterback somewhere in the next 2 drafts. Maybe Brady Quinn if he slips this year and Kubiak like shim. Maybe a 2nd or 3 round pick where you can find value.

Plummer is good enough to get us to the playoffs and start for a few years if need be.

Carr isn't.

 

it's never been consistently... well, even average. i know carr was flat-out awful in the oakland game, for instance, but the line was as well that day. it was sporadically passable this year. but, by and large, it was awful.

slow down just a second - i certainly didn't "want" to pay david carr $8M. i understand the decision they made, the conclusions they drew at the time. but i was by no means a champion of the extension.

if it had been a one-year deal and there was another decision to be made this offseason, i'd be in favor of jettisoning him.

herein lies my biggest beef: too many people (imo, of course) are retroactively applying 2005-06 results to 2002-04, and, i'm sorry, but he did not suck those first three years. in fact, he was right on schedule, literally improving in every single facet of the game each and every year until 2005. what more did people expect of a rookie starting for what we now know is the worst expansion franchise since the 1970 merger?

and even these past two years, i think the frustration with the team's decline and the ire that's creating has been too unfairly focused on carr. he certainly deserves blame. but this much??

i don't necessarily deem the QB rating as a be-all, end-all. but it is, more often than not, a pretty fair evaluation of how a QB is playing. i mean, peyton manning lead the league every year, you know? and if you look over carr's past 32 games, he posted a 80+ QB rating 18 times; hit 70-80 twice; and had a sub 70 rating 12 times.

again, not definitive - not by any means. nor am i arguing he's been good or above the problems with the team. i'm also not discounting, or excusing those 12 sub-70 outings. but if your QB is average or better in 20 of 32 games, and the team posts an 8-24 record... i'm sorry, while not excusing his play, or even trying to recast it - because i've said i thought last year was a disappointment - but if i were to hand you those numbers and you didn't know it was david carr, you'd likely agree with me that maybe QB wasn't the team's biggest problem. and you certainly wouldn't label said QB's performance as sucking. again, PLEASE do not read that as excusing david carr. it's more an indictment of how bad the team around him has been.

as for treating him as a rookie all over again, i realize that's extreme. but i think his development was so severely r****ded by the previous regime, that it's very nearly the only fair way to evaluate him. look, i've made this argument many, many times, but you look at the consistently great QBs in this league, and far more often than not, the team has built around them. in indianapolis, peyton manning is one of SIX former first round picks starting with him on offense. carr is one of three and eric moulds is one of them and i sincerely doubt he'll be back next year.

look what they did to him this year: passed on reggie bush to draft defensive help; stuck a 6th round pick and a street free agent in his backfield; started a rookie left tackle and a rookie tight end.... and that was probably the BEST line-up he's ever played with.

i'm all for upgrading the QB; but not at the expense of more pressing needs, and certainly not so we can bring in jake freaking plummer. i'm ok with another year of david carr. it's not like they're going to the playoffs next year with a better QB.

 

i got that impression, too. and as was being pointed out by mclain and others, many of carr's mistakes were not ones that you could point to pass protection as an excuse for. i remember he pointed out that of the 4 INT's he threw against the Patriots, for example, only 3 of them came where there was pressure on him. and i remember him passing into all sorts of coverage that just seemed unexplainable to me. i remember him having an awful 2nd half against dallas, throwing interceptions on consecutive drives to give the Cowboys great field position. and i remember kubiak taking the ball out of his hands in Oakland. and i remember kubiak pulling him from the Titans game. and i'm GUESSING that kubiak would have pulled him a couple of other times had rosenfels not been hurt.

i'd like to see them take a gunslinger like plummer. i'd like to see them take chances. i'd like to see what happens with the running game when a quarterback is trusted to throw the ball downfield and defenses have to adjust for that. i'd like to see how the team responds to someone different in the huddle.

as an aside...i know that some of us here don't think that what the fans want is important. but on some level, it is important. carr has become the face of the franchise, and it's not pretty. i really don't like carr...and it's affected how i feel about the franchise as a whole. i realize that's antecdotal evidence...but i think it's time to move on. it's been 5 years, and this franchise still lacks an identity but for being "the team that drafted Mario instead of Reggie or Vince." it's been 5 years, and in the last 2, we've seen our team and our QB take steps backwards. this is going to be a very tough division...and a very tough schedule this year. i'd be a lot more comfortable with seeing a guy on the field who's actually done it elsewhere than seeing a guy who i've never seen get it done.

 

I am not Carr biggest fan. Prior to last year, I thought he was getting better and had the potential to be an average NFL QB. I do think he is overpaid, but QB tend to be.

WRT last year, Kubiak had Carr passing from a three step drop. Why? Because Kubiak wanted to give Carr a chance to release the ball before the opposing DEs made a sandwich of him. Couple that with an ineffective running game for most of the year and you have defenses ignoring the run entirely, pinning their ears back, and rushing the QB exclusively. Our OTs were pathetic against the rush.

Here is the big question. What QB would excel in this situation? VY might, but for all the wrong reasons. JP would throw more INTs than Carr, I am sure of it.

Also FA QBs would be out of their effing minds to sign with the Texans. Who wants to be a pinata?

 

i'm sorry, I don't think it's that simple. He did not throw out of a 3 step drop all season. He did on timing routes, for sure, but so do most QB's. I don't think Carr's problems, at this point, are because he doesn't have protection. I just don't think that is what is really happening any more. And in years past I would absolutely have been making that argument. But I don't think this is a situation that nobody else could improve upon. He was getting better protection down the stretch, as best I could tell. Even when he was, it didn't matter. The OL isn't responsible for 100% of the sacks he takes, either.

and btw...some of carr's most pathetic games came when the running game was going well. oakland comes to mind.

 

There's only one way to find out: try something different.