The Houston Texans face a vexing decision with regard to quarterback David Carr, the team’s first draft pick in its existence — whether to pick up an $8 million option to retain Carr’s services over the next four seasons?
In what has become his typically superficial manner, the Chronicle’s main NFL beat writer, John McClain (previous posts on McClain here), weighs in with this column in which he contends that the Texans will and should pick up the option to retain Carr’s services. McClain reasons that the Texans should retain Carr because “every team in the NFL that needed a quarterback would line up to give him a signing bonus of a lot more than $8 million,” although McClain provides no supporting analysis for that conclusion.
Well, McClain may be correct and it may be true that the market for experienced QB’s in the NFL mitigates in favor of the Texans picking up Carr’s option. However, as with McClain’s recent criticism of the Texans’ personnel moves, it would be nice if McClain could provide some support for his views. Although Carr’s development as a QB has been stunted by the Texans’ atrocious offensive line, Carr has not shown many signs that he has the potential to be a top notch NFL QB. He has a sidearm delivery that results in a high number of tipped passes. He does not step up in the pocket well, and his ability to pick up secondary receivers is mediocre, at best. Moreover, just looking at the QB’s on other teams in the Texans’ division, it’s far from clear that Carr would be a hot commodity in the NFL’s QB market:
Indianapolis — Peyton Manning. No way they are in the market for Carr.
Cincinnati — Carson Palmer. Ditto.
Jacksonville — Bryan Leftwich. Ditto.
Tennessee — Steve McNair. Maybe, although owner Bud Adams is notoriously tight and would he view Carr as much of an upgrade over McNair’s cheap and servicible backup, Billy Volek? That’s certainly far from clear.
Similarly, taking a quick look around the NFL, there does not appear to be a large number of teams who would be competing for Carr’s services — my guesses of potential candidates would be Arizona, Baltimore, Buffalo, Cleveland, Miami, New York Jets, and Tampa Bay, but even most of those teams have viable alternatives who would be far cheaper and not clearly inferior to Carr.
So, McClain may be right about the Texans and Carr. But just as with his recent discovery that the Texans’ personnel is deficient, McClain ought to present supporting evidence for his view. Otherwise, his off-the-cuff opinions end up sounding like those of a cheerleader for Carr, just as his similarly sanguine views of Charley Casserly made him appear to be a shill for the Texans’ front office before this disastrous season.
McClain also fails to note that the Texans also have a three year option for $5 million they can use, instead of the 4 year/$8 million option. Seems like a wiser decision to exercise the former than the latter.
On McClain – he has mailed it in this year to an alarming degree. He seems to be obsessed with promoting the mostly crappy movies he appears in on his radio appearances, and his completely non-judgmental views on Hollywood seem to have affected his judgement in other areas.
As a Titans fan (I moved first, so I gave them permission to do the same), I don’t know think I would choose David Carr over Billy Volek. I’m not sure, though, that the AFC South is the best comparison; two of the starting QB’s were chosen as co-MVPs two seasons ago and the other was a top ten pick the same year. This isn’t to suggest that David Carr is a top-flight NFL quarterback, as he clearly isn’t; merely that he’s probably an average-quality starter or slightly worse, though there doesn’t seem to be anybody confident about Carr’s long-term future.
I think one other aspect you’ve neglected is where a potential replacement for Carr would come from; would Dave Ragone or Tony Banks be an improvement over Carr, or should they pick up somebody from another team? If so, will the O-line be able to protect him any better? I think Dr. Z is right-you won’t have a decent offense until you have a decent offensive line.