New Orleans Saints quarterback Derek Carr has seen his fantasy production decline for two straight seasons. Now out of Las Vegas, can Carr rebound on an offense that prefers to run the ball? What is his fantasy football outlook for the 2023 season?
Behind in research? Get a trade offer in your dynasty or redraft league? Not sure who to start or sit this week? Leverage PFN’s FREE fantasy tools — our Fantasy Football Draft Kit, Fantasy Football Trade Analyzer and Calculator, and Start/Sit Optimizer! Put the finishing touch on your A+ draft with 1 of our 425+ fantasy football team names.
Derek Carr’s Fantasy Outlook
2023 will be the toughest season for predicting Carr’s production. While Carr may be entering his 10th professional season, it is his first not with the Raiders.
For much of his career, Carr has enjoyed offenses not afraid to throw the ball. That was the Saints during the Drew Brees era, too. But since then, the Saints have been reluctant to call many pass plays. The question is whether that is part of a new offensive philosophy or a product of the dismal options they’ve had since Brees retired.
Even in Brees’ final season, the Saints had just a 53% neutral-game-script-pass rate. In the two years since, they’ve been at 52% and 48%. By comparison, the Raiders threw at a 58% rate in a neutral game script last season. That is a very large disparity, the reconciliation of which will be highly impactful on whether Carr is a viable fantasy quarterback this season.
Over his career, Carr has never averaged higher than 17.8 fantasy points per game and has never finished higher than QB13, which he did when averaging 17.6 ppg way back in 2016.
Interestingly enough, Carr also averaged 17.6 ppg in 2020 but only finished as the QB20. Over the past few years, quarterback scoring has increased across the NFL. Yet, Carr has remained largely the same. If anything, he’s gotten worse, as his ppg declined each of the past two seasons.
In Las Vegas last year, Carr was gifted one of the five best receivers in the NFL in Davante Adams. Despite this monstrous addition, Carr completed 60.8% of his passes, his lowest average since his rookie year, and averaged 15.5 fantasy ppg, his lowest since 2018.
Carr was not afraid to take shots downfield. His 9.4 average depth of target was second in the league. He also attempted the fifth-most deep balls in total. The problem is he didn’t complete many of them, as his completion percentage on throws of at least 20 yards was just 32%, 28th in the league.
On a more positive side of things, Carr still has strong weapons at his disposal in New Orleans. Chris Olave is already one of the best downfield receivers in the league. Alvin Kamara is still an excellent pass catcher. Juwan Johnson broke out last season. And if Carr can get anything from Michael Thomas, that’s a win.
There’s certainly potential here. Unfortunately, the negatives seem to far outweigh the positives.
Should Fantasy Managers Draft Carr at His ADP?
For Carr to thrive as a fantasy quarterback, he will need to be far more efficient than he was last season. Although I do love Olave, just about everyone is a downgrade from Adams. If Carr couldn’t succeed with Adams, I struggle to see him doing so without him.
Carr also needs the volume to be there. Last year, he averaged 33.4 pass attempts per game. The Saints threw the ball just 30.1 times per game. While that should increase with Carr under center, the Saints want to be a run-first offense.
My projections have Carr attempting 551 passes and returning to a 67.8% completion percentage. That looks pretty good. Yet, I have him throwing for 4,182 yards and 23.8 touchdowns against 10 interceptions. That comes out to 15.7 ppg and a QB25 finish.
The only real path to Carr being a viable fantasy starter is if he throws way more touchdowns than I’m projecting. Of course, it’s possible. Touchdowns vary greatly from year to year in terms of how teams score them. The Saints could still be run-heavy but happen to score more through the air. But even a 30-touchdown season would only get Carr to 17.1 ppg.
Fantasy managers seem too wise to the unlikelihood of Carr being someone they can rely on. He has a QB27 ADP, No. 187 overall. I have Carr ranked at QB21, which is firmly ahead of consensus.
In Superflex leagues, Carr looks like a really solid QB2. However, in single-QB leagues, while he’s definitely going to pop up on the streaming radar throughout the season, it’s difficult to see a scenario where Carr is an every-week starter.