The New Orleans Saints have a quarterback with plenty to prove in 2024. Derek Carr will have his third offensive coordinator in three years. He needs to show more consistency than he did in 2023, but his play was impressive in the second half of the year.
Hopefully for New Orleans, they will see more performances like those throughout 2024. There's a lot of belief around new OC Klint Kubiak leading the charge on that side of the ball.
In 2023, Carr was actually more accurate than some folks may have previously believed. Some of the mishaps in the passing game did not fall solely on the QB.
Derek Carr was top 8 in key QB stat
The Saints quarterback had just a 21% red zone incompletion due to inaccurate pass rate, according to Warren Sharp.
Accordingly, the Saints signal-caller was better than you may think inside the twenty yard line. His performance in that portion of the field was noticeably better after the first month of the 2023 season.
Also, note that the quarterbacks leading this statistic are not the most impressive. You can take it with a grain of salt, but there's something to be said for Carr's ability to thread the needle close to the end zone. He did that more often than some fans think last season.
If Carr and the Saints can produce more efficiently throughout 2024, you can expect their offense to be amongst the best units in the NFC.
They've got the talent to be that sort of group, but they need to do a better job around Carr when they've pushed down the field, though. Let's see if a change in play-caller makes it all a bit simpler for the players as well.
At times in 2023, the Saints ignored their top talent in those situations and got a bit too "cute" in the red zone. That cannot be the case for Carr and co. in 2024. Regardless, he does deserve some flowers for this particular stat.
