Derek Carr’s contract with Saints is a massive middle finger to Raiders

March 7, 2023 ndowd

Derek Carr’s contract details with the Saints reveal how generous he is to NOLA and how petty he was to Las Vegas.

Why didn’t Derek Carr just agree to a trade to the New Orleans Saints back when he was on the Las Vegas Raiders? He wanted to screw them over, that’s why.

On Monday, Carr and the Saints agreed to a four-year, $150 million deal which averages a payout of $37.5 million per season. Carr will receive $100 million in total guarantees, but the most important part of the contract for the Saints franchise is his cap hit: assuming Carr gets a minimum base salary in 2023 (roughly $1.2 million) and say, a $30 million signing bonus, the Saints can spread that number over several years to whittle down Carr’s cap hit to $7-8 million this season.

Ever the gracious quarterback, Carr was amenable to structuring his deal to accommodate the Saints’ cap issues, and he ends up with the same contract he likely would have commanded in a trade from Las Vegas to NOLA. In this scenario, though, Carr can move money around to help his new team.

Basically, he never had the Raiders’ interests in mind when trying to switch teams this offseason. After the way Las Vegas unceremoniously ousted him at the end of the 2022 season, Carr has every right to prioritize himself and the Saints in this next chapter of his career.

More on Derek Carr’s 4-year, $150 million deal.

• Expected to get $60M for ’23 and ’24.
• That $60M = fully guaranteed.
• $10M more vests in ’24, paid as a bonus in March ’25.
• First 3 years expected to land at around $100 million.
• BIG number in 2026.
• No-trade clause.

— Albert Breer (@AlbertBreer) March 6, 2023

Derek Carr agrees to a team-friendly contract with the Saints, says “Screw you” to the Raiders

Like his old contract with the Raiders, Carr also has a no-trade clause in his Saints’ contract, which allows him to control his future to some degree.

Given the typically respectable Saints’ organization, it’s hard to imagine the two sides having a fallout as bad as Carr had with the Raiders.

Carr’s relationship with the Raiders started feeling chilly once Las Vegas announced Carr was leaving the team on a sabbatical of sorts toward the end of the 2022 season. Then, as Carr was perusing his top destinations at the start of the offseason, he turned ice-cold against the Raiders, rejecting a trade that would have given Las Vegas some amount of draft compensation.

Assuming the Saints don’t suddenly offload Carr after one season, and as long as Carr maintains his Pro Bowl level of production in 2023, everybody gets what they wanted — except the Raiders. Carr, who finally gets a much-needed fresh start, will play in warm weather with a former coach in the weakest division in the league, and he’ll also continue living rent-free in Raiders fans’ heads this offseason.

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