Derek Carr was conspicuously absent throughout New Orleans' Super Bowl week
It's been hard to miss all the New Orleans Saints players making the rounds in the media this week. Many of them were quarterbacks — backups like Spencer Rattler and Jake Haener either shook hands and took photos with fans at the Super Bowl Experience event at the Caesars Superdome or promoted their sponsorship partners on various podcasts and radio shows. Drew Brees was a popular interview on that same circuit. FOX Sports gave Jameis Winston a microphone and a camera crew and told him to be himself.
All of this makes Derek Carr's absence highly conspicuous. Fan favorites of yesteryear like Marques Colston, Jimmy Graham, Thomas Morstead and Mark Ingram II were all out and about, either chopping it up with the media or just taking in the atmosphere. So were current players like Bryan Bresee, Blake Grupe, Ugo Amadi, Demario Davis and Cameron Jordan. But not Carr. Sure, his future with the team is in doubt, but that's also true for guys like Amadi and Clyde Edwards-Helaire, who aren't even under contract next season. They still showed up.
So where was he? Carr told reporters a month ago how eager he was to get back to Fresno, Calif. with his wife and four children: 'Excited for my kids to have a place they can call 'home, home.' We've moved a lot and they've been asking me 'where are we going to grow up forever?' We told them Fresno and now we get to do that.'
Carr went to college at Fresno State and will be living in the same area as his older brother David, who told the local ABC affiliate he'll also be training there while preparing for the 2025 season. So he's presumably been busy with the move and getting settled in at his family's forever home.
Still, it's really disappointing to see so many prominent members of the team, past and present, doing their part to show off New Orleans. All eyes are on the city ahead of the biggest football game of the year. The quarterback Carr replaced (Winston) has been around, just like the guy whose legacy he's been chasing (Brees). Both of his backups (Rattler and Haener) made the effort or were at least compelled by their sponsors to show up. Carr couldn't be bothered to even fly in for a day to chat on Radio Row.
When the Pelicans drafted Zion Williamson, Brees delivered a short message to him: If you love New Orleans, this city will love you back. Carr hasn't done that often enough. Regardless of how you feel about how well he's played on the field (for his part, Carr felt strongly enough about it to get out in front of any talk about taking a pay cut), doing work in the community or recording positive radio hits will go a long way. Something as small as recommending his favorite restaurant or some other small local business would win a lot of goodwill. It's a shame that wasn't a priority for him.
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