Carr getting cozy in Carolina

Yep. QB soap opera >> Weinke as our back-up.

 

Maybe we'll finally get to see whether or not Mike McCoy is worth the air he breathes.

 

We all know the answer to that already.

 

I think a lot of that depends on what Henning allowed him to do and whether Henning was holding him back (not wanting to cede the QBs coaching job in the first place, possibly for control reasons), or alternately whether he was shielding McCoy's deficiencies. Who knows at this point. Knowing the relationship with Skipper, for McCoy to have been a theoretical "better candidate", probably does speak well for McCoy. Then again, I don't know that we know for sure McCoy was a better candidate. Yasinskas suggested McCoy was the front runner, and then we started interviewing outside guys.

So you could use that either way - McCoy was highly thought of, or McCoy didn't get the job so maybe he isn't. The thing is, we don't know at all.

But for certain, one thing that would have to happen for Carr to be the long term QB - and contractural issues shouldn't matter v/s performance since Jake's contract still has a lot of length (cutting is still not likely a competitive option without major failure) and Carr's is two years (meaning starting him is requisite with locking him up at market, likely at Delhomme's price or higher) - is that he'd have to learn how to read a defense. If that were to show itself were he to get a chance in a situation where Delhomme wouldn't come back, and we have a quarterback.

If we dumped Delhomme, and Carr can't read the D to make the plays he'd need to make, both options are problematic. Pay him, and he's likely to show similar tendencies to the Texans - holding the ball, taking unnecessary sacks, without the playmaking potential. Don't pay him, and 2008 or 09 is essentially 2002 but with a much older defense.

 

Actually I think it's very likely that Jake gets cut if he doesn't perform better than he did last season. His contract only runs a year longer than Carr's, and the base salaries increase dramatically in '08 and '09. Meanwhile Carr certainly has things to work on, which is why I'd prefer that he sit all season barring injuries, but I don't know that anyone can say Jake is adept at reading defenses either.

In any case, Carr's issue isn't that he can't read defenses, as he rarely threw into coverages the way that Jake does. His problem is that he was completely gunshy in the pocket and would over-analyze the coverage without making a decision about where to go with the ball.

 

Do you think he can be 'coached' out of those tendancies with our current staff?

 

Your second sentence above seems to contradicts the first. Doesn't "can't read defenses" easily translate into "over-analyze the coverage without making a decision about where to go with the ball." If not what do you mean by "can't read defenses"?

 

Trace:
I'm not terribly optimistic, but it's worth a shot. At minimum I think he'll be adequate, but him fully realizing his potential seems like a longshot.

No, it doesn't, and I have a hard time understanding how anyone could think otherwise. Not being able to read defenses and over-analyzing defenses are on two opposite ends of the spectrum. One means that you don't know what the hell you're looking at, while the other means that you're so engrossed with reading those defenses that you freeze up and don't make a decision. Basically, it's like Carr reads defenses too much. At some point you have to control the information and make a decision.

 

So your distinction is that he can't read defenses "fast enough" instead of "not at all." Okay, I got it. He knows what to do but is either too slow in figuring it out or simply has confidence issues that he can make the right decision. It does sound like a year on the bench wouldn't hurt him.

 

No, that's not what I said. Carr reads defenses fine; he does it accurately and reasonably quickly. The problem is that he spends too much time reading those defenses. He's overly cautious. To use an analogy, he's not some grandma driver who can't process traffic information quickly enough to decide whether or not to pull out into the road. Instead he's one of those neurotic types who checks each direction back and forth so long that he pisses off everyone behind him.

Your comment about confidence is probably accurate. Hopefully he can work on that and develop a comfort zone in which he realizes that he doesn't have to wait until everything is perfect to make a decision. It's like he doesn't want to take risks, when you have to as a quarterback. You can't avoid that, you just try to take the most reasonable ones.