The 2023 season was anything but picture-perfect for the New Orleans Saints, particularly as it pertained to Derek Carr's first season as the main man in the offense.
There was inconsistency. There were injuries. There was infighting galore. The season finished outside of the postseason at 9-8 and those three factors listed about are a big reason why. But there was also a strong finish that gave the Saints a winning record and a chance at the postseason, and as Super Bowl champion Scott Shanle explained on WWL this week, it's something that was brushed off far too quickly by a large swath of the fanbase.
"The only thing I ask of the fans is, if you’re going to criticize, you’ve got to give him credit, and I don’t feel like people gave him enough credit at the end of the year for the way that he played," Shanle said to WWL Radio's Bobby Hebert, "because there was tons of criticism. I still listen to it now."
Listen to the full, exclusive interview with Scott Shanle in the player above. Can't see the embed? Click here.
The final five-game stretch included four wins sandwiching an all-around disappointing effort in a Thursday Night Football loss to the Rams. Over the final month of the season Carr completed 75 percent of his passes (96-128) for 998 yards and 12 touchdowns against just one interception. That stretch also included a comfortable win in Tampa Bay in Week 17 and a 48-17 win over the Falcons in the finale. The Saints finished with the same record as the Bucs, Seahawks and Packers, all of whom landed ahead of the Saints in tiebreaker scenarios by virtue of Week 18 results.
Carr finished the season with a 68.4% completion rate for 3,878 yards, 25 TDs and 8 interceptions, numbers that fall along the lines of his career average (64.9%, 3,910, 24, 10).
"I was a little down on some of the leadership things, maybe some of the things he said after the game as far as taking the responsibility and not," Shanle said, "and then he finished the season extremely strong and looked really good, looked like the Derek Carr that everybody thought we were getting."
When asked late in the season, Saints head coach Dennis Allen pointed to an AC joint sprain suffered in Week 3 against the Packers. Carr played through the injury, but wasn't really healthy until later in the year. Carr himself said in an interview this offseason that the injury affected him more than he let on. Shanle said he believes it, considering he dealt with the injury himself during his NFL career.
Related
"He went out there and he tried to do the right thing," Shanle continued. "He said, you’re paying me all this money, I have to be the face of the team, I want to be a leader. I want to be out there in the huddle with my guys and what you’d like to see in that situation is the rest of the team rally around that guy and say, man, we respect this guy’s toughness, and I think that’s what Derek was trying to do and I have a lot of respect for guys that try to do that, and you just have to know as a player, am I helping the team or hurting the team, and I think even though he was hurt he was probably the best option to be out there.”
Heading into the 2024 season, Carr will be the starting quarterback again. Shanle would estimate that the support for Carr is somewhere below 50%. That's evidenced by the immediate hype around Spencer Rattler after the team brought him in with a 5th round pick. The love of Rattler and the sentiment around Carr are connected to some degree.
As it pertains to the 2024 season, though, Carr will be the guy Saints fans can and should get behind, particularly if he's the model of himself that finished the 2023 season.
"We draft a guy in the 5th round and everybody wants him to be the starter. ... Spencer Rattler has a long way to go in terms of becoming a starting quarterback in the NFL. Can he do it? I don’t know. Time will tell, but I think fans need to realize, we have one of the better quarterbacks in the NFL," Shanle continued. "Is he Drew Brees? No, not many guys are going to be Drew Brees, but he is a good enough quarterback to win the NFC South, get in the playoffs and with this defense ... if we can get the things right on the offensive line, the defensive line and control the line of scrimmage, this team can win the NFC South.”