A complete breakdown of Derek Carr’s game for New York Jets fans: Based on the film
Here at Jets X-Factor, we always try our absolute best to learn everything we possibly can about players who are not on the team we cover, aiming to make the best effort to communicate essential information about that player to a new fanbase who is unfamiliar with him.
This is all well and good, but it cannot be denied that the best source of information on any player in the NFL would be a person who has closely watched that player for years and years, watching the intricacies of his game develop over time.
That brings us to Derek Carr.
With Carr being a very plausible option to become the New York Jets‘ next franchise quarterback, Jets fans and media have discussed and broken down Carr ad nauseam over the past two months. There’s been plenty of great analysis done on Carr by those in the Jets world, but for Jets fans to get the most honest, familiar, and educated breakdown of Carr, they would need to hear from someone who watched him in silver and black over the past nine seasons.
Marcus Johnson covers the Las Vegas Raiders at Silver & Black Pride and hosts his own film breakdown show, Tape Don’t Lie. He has watched the film of every snap Derek Carr has ever played in the NFL and knows more about the nitty-gritty of Carr’s game than anyone out there.
Jets fans will want to hear what Marcus had to say about Carr on the latest episode of the Cool Your Jets podcast.
Marcus provided tremendous insight, giving Jets fans all of the reasons to be optimistic about Carr and all of the reasons to be skeptical. He says Garrett Wilson and the Jets’ weapons “are going to be happy” if Derek Carr comes in and “will like him a lot”, due to his proven ability to ensure his best weapons put up great numbers.
Most of all, Marcus praised Carr’s pre-snap abilities. “Pre-snap, he’s so good. The offensive line, wherever he’s going to go, is going to be better than what they actually are. This past year, the Raiders’ offensive line was not good, but people believed that they were, and a lot of that is because of Derek Carr. He’s so good pre-snap, he gets the right protections in, he’ll get you in the right spot, he sees blitzes probably just as good as anybody in the league.”
Marcus says Carr’s pre-snap skills have caused teams to avoid blitzing him. “Teams don’t blitz him that much. Teams that do, they get burned because he can see those things and he can point them out. If he has a good running back and a great center, it’s over for you if he’s seeing those blitzes.”
At the same time, Marcus warned that Carr is coming off a “very inconsistent season” and that his anticipation was “non-existent” after he had progressed in that area over the previous few years.
Marcus dove deep into numerous film-based details of Carr’s game, including:
- The routes he thrives at throwing and the routes he struggles to complete
- Defensive schemes that cause him trouble and those he succeeds against
- The best and worst offensive schemes for suiting Carr’s skill set
- The roller-coaster of Carr’s anticipation throughout his career
- Carr’s pre and post-snap processing skills
- Carr’s ability to set protections
- Carr’s double-edged sword under pressure: How he protects himself to stay durable, but at a cost
- Specific types of skill-position players that would thrive off of Carr’s strengths
- How Carr has allowed the outside noise to alter his on-field play
- Whether the cold-weather concerns are legitimate
- Where Carr ranks among all NFL QBs
- Grading Carr in 13 different quarterbacking categories
Give it a listen to learn everything you need to know about Carr’s viability as a quarterback option for the New York Jets.
