Derek Carr's willingness to publicly blame teammates will strain his relationship with them
Saints quarterback Derek Carr might soon find himself on the wrong end of a code red.
On Thursday night, Carr repeatedly expressed frustrations after plays that didn't work. The message became unmistakable.
It's someone else's fault, not mine.
That's not what good quarterbacks do. It's not what good leaders do. They raise concerns with others privately, away from the prying eyes of a phalanx of Amazon Prime HD cameras. And, imagine this, they sometimes even accept blame when perhaps they shouldn't.
"I've been showing my emotion a little bit too much on my sleeve," Carr admitted to reporters after last night's 31-24 loss to the Jaguars. "You know, like, I kind of got to kind of chill out, and that's me holding myself accountable. Because that's not going to help anything. And so just trying to be a calming influence in those moments, especially when it's been a couple time it's happened, that heightened frustration. I can do a better job as a leader to calm everybody down."
That's fine, until he added this: "There were some things that happened today that led to some pretty big negative plays that should never happen, and I think that's where my frustration was coming from."
Juxtaposed against his facial expressions and overall histrionics, it's clear that he thinks the "big negative plays that should never happen" could never be blamed on him.
How will players like receiver Chris Olave feel about what happened last night? He was publicly dressed down with a "what are you doing?" from Carr. (Carr tried to say after the game that his comments weren't directed to Olave, which frankly is a load of crap.) Other players caught some of it as well last night.
Beyond whatever those players thought about Carr's antics in the moment, think of the texts and calls they've gotten or will be getting from family members and/or friends, expressing anger with Carr for treating fellow players that way on national TV.
It's just not something good quarterbacks do. Remember when the Colts lost to the Steelers in the playoffs after the 2005 season? Quarterback Peyton Manning was dragged for a relatively tame effort to point out the obvious.
“I’m trying to be a good teammate here,” Manning said. “Let’s just say we had some problems in protection. I’ll give Pittsburgh credit for the blitzes and their rush. Those guys rushed. But we did have some protection problems.”
That was nothing in comparison to Carr's constant airing of grievances against his teammates. It was awkward. It was unfortunate. And it's going to require Carr to do some real work to mend fences. If he's inclined to even do so.
And that's the one piece of free (money's worth) advice we'll give Derek Carr. Don't even try to do it, unless it's genuine and authentic. Don't say whatever you think a guy in your situation should say. Say what needs to be said to repair the obvious damage that you've done to those critically important relationships.
