Derek Carr’s return to the New Orleans Saints starting lineup couldn’t have gone much worse.
He lost his top goal to a concussion when his pass over the middle sailed over his receiver. He lost to the worst team in the league and he became the first NFL quarterback to lose to 31 teams.
A day later, he lost his head coach.
These are not the Saints of Sean Payton and Drew Brees, to be sure. But Carr and Dennis Allen quickly rekindled hopes of parading another Lombardi Trophy down Bourbon Street as the Saints racked up 91 points in back-to-back sweeps of Carolina and Dallas to start the season.
They scored on their first nine possessions ia 47-10 rout of the Panthers in the opener, then peaked a week later at Jerry World when they reached the end zone on their first half-dozen drives in a 44-19 jaw droppers against the Cowboys.
Those were heady times — and, as it turned out, fleeting.
The Saints have lost seven straight games since Week 2 amid a flurry of injuries, including a strained oblique that sent Carr to the sidelines for three weeks.
Four of those losses were by double digits, among them a 33-10 loss Thursday night leaping from Payton and his new team, the resurgent Denver Broncos.
The costliest loss was the Saints’ 23-22 loss at Charlotte last Sunday when Carr couldn’t lead his team into field goal range in the final minute and the Saints left town with the same 2-7 record as the Panthers, a team that’s statistically terrible and historically bad.
So, Dennis Allen, who was previously fired by the then-Oakland Raiders in 2014, on Monday became the first coach in NFL history to be fired twice with the same quarterback starting both teams.
In a written statement from the team, Allen thanked team owner Gayle Benson and GM Mickey Loomis for his opportunity and said, “I’m sorry the results weren’t better, because they were truly deserved.”
Allen is the second NFL coach to be fired midway through the 2024 season. Jeff Ulbrich replaced Robert Saleh as interim coach after the Jets’ 2-3 start and it took him a month to get his first win.
The caretaker in New Orleans is Darren Rizzi, who gets the Browns (2-7) at home in two weeks and the Giants (2-7) on the road in four, but he inherited a battered team and a quarterback ousted by former teammate Michael Thomas in social media following wide receiver Chris Olave’s concussion on Sunday.
Cutting across the middle and reaching for Carr’s errant pass, Olave was pinned by safety Xavier Woods and cornerback Dane Jackson. While Woods was flagged for unnecessary roughness, Olave remained on the court for several minutes and was attended to by trainers as the crowd fell silent and players from both teams gathered around him. He was eventually placed on a backboard and taken to hospital by ambulance.
Thomas immediately criticized Carr on social media, saying that Carr tends to “just panic and throw the ball.” He also posted another message on X suggesting that Carr should be fined for throwing a “hospital pass”.
Carr spoke for more than four minutes about Thomas’ postgame comments.
“I have a pit in my stomach every time one of my teammates goes down because I love them so much,” Carr said. “Whether I like them or not, and I happen to love Chris Olave. We have a great relationship. I hate, and I don’t like to use that word a lot, but I hate moments like that.”
Carr said Thomas, who has criticized Carr on social media in the past, seems to be the one teammate who hasn’t gotten along with him in the NFL.
“I don’t know what I did with him,” Carr said. “I don’t know why he feels that way. I’m sorry for whatever he has to deal with to make him feel like he has to. But he has never called me during all of this. My phone number has never changed. I have actually called him on different occasions. Sometimes you can try as hard as you want. And that’s okay. But I hope he gets into a team and does what he wants and loves it.”
Woods said after the match that he did not believe it was a malicious hit, but officials told him he was penalized for hitting Olave in the head. “There was nothing dirty on my part, I was just playing football,” Woods said.
Entering the weekend, Carr was one of 10 QBs to lose to 30 different teams, a club that includes Brees, Brett Favre, Joe Flacco and Matt Ryan. Now Carr stands alone as the only QB to lose to 31 teams.
The only team he hasn’t lost against is his old team, the Raiders, who the Saints host on December 29th.
Kelce’s apology
Another mea culpa came when former Eagles center Jason Kelce began ESPN’s broadcast of “Monday Night Countdown” by admits he shouldn’t have returned an anti-gay slur to a Penn State football fan who heckled him Saturday about his brother, Travis, dating Taylor Swift.
“In a heated moment, I chose to greet hate with hate,” Jason Kelce said. “And I don’t think that’s a productive thing.”
Regrettable decisions
What happened to the axiom that you play for the draw at home and the win on the road?
The The Buccaneers lost 30-24 in Kansas City in overtime Monday night after Tampa Bay coach Todd Bowles decided to go for a tie rather than a win following Baker Mayfield’s touchdown throw with 27 seconds left in regulation.
The Bucs were the third team to lose in Week 9 after kicking the game-tying extra point after a TD in the final minute of regulation. The others were the Patriots in Tennessee and the Seahawks at home against the Rams.
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AP Pro Football Writer Josh Dubow in San Francisco and AP Sports Writers Steve Reed in Charlotte, North Carolina, and Brett Martel in New Orleans contributed to this report.
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