{"id":59747,"date":"2025-05-18T11:15:11","date_gmt":"2025-05-18T11:15:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/59747\/"},"modified":"2025-05-18T11:15:11","modified_gmt":"2025-05-18T11:15:11","slug":"drew-brees-weighs-in-on-derek-carrs-surprising-retirement-saints","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/59747\/","title":{"rendered":"Drew Brees weighs in on Derek Carr’s ‘surprising’ retirement | Saints"},"content":{"rendered":"

When he first heard that Derek Carr<\/a> had a shoulder injury, Drew Brees didn\u2019t hesitate to reach out. Brees, after all, knew a thing or two about overcoming such an ailment. He offered to be a sounding board, and Carr made sure to reply. The two had formed a friendship over the last few years, shared by their bond<\/a> of being the quarterback for the New Orleans Saints.<\/p>\n

But less than a month later, Brees found out that the 34-year-old chose to retire from the NFL after 11 seasons. And, like practically everyone else, the former Saints great didn\u2019t see Carr’s decision coming.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, a bit surprising, just being so early in his career,\u201d Brees said.<\/p>\n

Brees said Saturday that he thought Carr\u2019s best football was ahead of him, pointing to his own experience of \u201centering your prime\u201d in your early 30s. But Brees added that he understands if the severity of Carr\u2019s injury factored into his choice, comparing it to Andrew Luck\u2019s shocking retirement from 2019.<\/p>\n

\u201cLook, there\u2019s life after football,\u201d said Brees at the opening of Surge Entertainment, the former quarterback\u2019s latest business venture in Metairie. \u201cThere\u2019s that second chapter. \u2026 It seems like (Carr and his family) really put down roots in Vegas. I know he\u2019s got aspirations to perhaps build a school, a church, pastor that. He\u2019s obviously very involved in the church, his community.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo at times, you just feel called to do other things. And football was that unique chapter in your life, but there\u2019s so much more after football. It seemed like he was ready to take that next step.\u201d<\/p>\n

Instead, with Carr no longer playing for the Saints, Brees weighed in on the Saints\u2019 quarterback situation. He praised rookie Tyler Shough<\/a>, but made clear he\u2019s looking forward to seeing a competition unfold for the starting job.<\/p>\n

Brees called the Saints\u2019 forthcoming battle \u201cpretty unprecedented.\u201d And that\u2019s not an exaggeration for a franchise that has not started a rookie quarterback to open the season since 1971.<\/p>\n

Between Shough, second-year passer Spencer Rattler and third-year signal-caller Jake Haener, the Saints don\u2019t have a quarterback on the roster who has won an NFL game as a starter.<\/p>\n

\u201c(Coach) Kellen Moore has proven to be a great developer of quarterbacks where he\u2019s been over the last six years,\u201d Brees said. \u201cI think we all really respect the system and his way of coaching and developing. I\u2019m sure he\u2019s excited to mold these young guys. I\u2019m really excited to see what this offense looks like.\u201d<\/p>\n

As for Shough, Brees said he likes what he has seen. Brees admitted he hasn\u2019t done a deep dive of the quarterback\u2019s college film, but said his experience with coach Jeff Brohm at Louisville and his history of overcoming adversity were \u201cimpressive.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shough played for three different schools (Oregon, Texas Tech and Louisville) and dealt with three season-ending injuries before having a standout year that led the Saints to draft him with the 40th overall pick.<\/p>\n

\u201cHonestly, (there\u2019s) a lot of similarities to Taysom Hill,\u201d Brees said, referring to his former teammate who is still with the Saints.. \u201cTaysom Hill is one of these guys coming out of college who spent four or five years in college and had some major injuries. But man, whenever he played, he played really, really well. \u2026 Look, we\u2019ll see how this thing shakes out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not giving anybody the job right now. I know we went out and drafted Tyler Shough in the second round, but I\u2019m sure Haener and Rattler have something to say about that. Competitions bring out the best in everybody.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brees also has seen the way Shough appears to be integrating into New Orleans. The rookie\u2019s first meal in the city was at Dragos and he already got a flat tire when driving over a pothole.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s extremely important (to get to know the city),\u201d Brees said, \u201cespecially if you plan on being here for a long time. I think it\u2019s a must. Look, I think from everything I\u2019ve seen, he\u2019s doing everything the right way.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd now, for him, he\u2019s got his sight set on being the starting quarterback on this team \u2014 just like the other two guys are.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When he first heard that Derek Carr had a shoulder injury, Drew Brees didn\u2019t hesitate to reach out.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":59748,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2076],"tags":[7,4095,896,55,2572,2571,6,397],"class_list":{"0":"post-59747","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-orleans-saints","8":"tag-football","9":"tag-hardwall","10":"tag-new-orleans","11":"tag-new-orleans-saints","12":"tag-neworleans","13":"tag-neworleanssaints","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-saints"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/114528552611982340","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59747","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=59747"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59747\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/59748"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=59747"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=59747"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=59747"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}