Derek Carr has been a player for the New Orleans Saints for over a year now, but he recently shared that he could have been a quarterback for a different team if he had acknowledged the other team’s pitch.
Carr said he met and considered signing with the New York Jets during the 2023 NFL offseason.
“I could’ve [signed with New York],” Carr said during an appearance on the Pardon My Take podcast, via gulflive.com. “It just wasn’t the right time for me. There were still like four or five teams I had to hear from.
“I remember sitting there with (Jets coach Robert Saleh) and he’s like, ‘Look, man, we’d love to have you. It’s up to you.'”
Carr had already sat with the Saints before he visited Florham Park, New Jersey, to have a meeting with Saleh and Jets leadership, and he eventually chose Dennis Allen’s squad in New Orleans.
The Jets went ahead to draft Aaron Rodgers through a trade more than a month later.
If pumping the brakes on acquiring Carr was simply due diligence, the Saints’ quarterback made the right decision. But Jets fans may be left to wonder how the team’s 2023 season could have ended if they had signed Carr instead of Rodgers. Rodgers tore his Achilles tendon only four days into the season, sending New York back to a bad place under center.
Meanwhile, Carr enters Year 2 of the four-year, $150 million contract he signed with New Orleans. After struggling through the 2023 season with an uninspired offensive attack, he will embark on his second campaign with new offensive coordinator Klint Kubiak calling the shots.
With Derek settling nicely into this role with the Saints, no one will ever know what his career would have been like if he had signed with New York. Jets fans are hoping they will not have to ponder it, especially with a new season approaching.
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