Friday Film Room: Derek Carr

Here is what I wrote about Derek Carr's 2015 prospects this summer:

"Carr has taken a pass for a so-so rookie season. But I see a young QB with accuracy and decision-making problems who should've been picked off way more than 12 times in 2014, and who often made his game stats look respectable with deep jump balls."

I stand by these thoughts. The great thing about evaluating NFL players when you're a film-watcher is game film is agnostic. If you put in the time and don't have an axe to grind, game film just is. It isn't subject to the spin and quasi-political pretzel logic that seems to dominate most aspects of American public life these days, including the NFL "intelligentsia." Derek Carr's rookie film really wasn't very good.

In 2015, Carr has played better. Film is agnostic, and his has been pretty favorable. I'm happy to report that my opinion of Derek Carr's future has gotten rosier.

Let's start with the carryovers from last season. In Week 2, tied 30-30 with the Ravens with five minutes left in the fourth quarter, Carr uncorks this very 2014 throw:

The pass rush gets close, but Carr stands in. He simply misreads the defense. He thinks he has Michael Crabtree behind everybody and must only loft it skyward for Crabtree to catch the game-winning touchdown. Somehow he forgets that the Ravens have a safety deep. There's no disguise here; it's not like Will Hill comes out of nowhere. He's just standing back there, Carr lofts a dunderheaded pass, and it's picked off. It should've cost Oakland the game.

These throws lurk. To me, Carr is a puppy dog of a quarterback, just so enthused to make a throw. As I'll show in a moment, sometimes that works out well. Against the Lions in Week 11, however, not so much:

This pick was actually called back by a sketchy defensive holding penalty away from the play, but it has all the earmarks of a young QB who doesn't know when to put the ball in his pocket. Yes, he sees the middle of the field open, and gets excited to allow Crabtree to make a play one-on-one. But he doesn't trust his eyes; surely he sees that Lions corner Quandre Diggs is playing a trail technique and has help over the top. It's a pass he almost literally can't complete, but he throws it anyway.

Listen, we can play this game with any quarterback. We can play this game with Tom Brady: find the poor throws, magnify them, draw overarching conclusions. What's best about Carr so far in 2015 is the relative lack of such bad decisions, especially compared to last season. I can't exactly create GIFs of a lack of bad plays, so instead I'll show you this:

Against the Titans in Week 12, Carr has sent a man in motion and seen a slot corner hand the receiver off without tracking him across the line, which means: zone. So he knows he'll have Seth Roberts running a deep post into a tight window. And man, he drills that throw. That's a big-boy pass right there: 38 yards on a rope, over the linebacker and in front of the safety. I never questioned Carr's arm strength, but I have questioned his ability to hit narrow openings, and this is an example of the best he can be.

Another big difference for Carr this year? He has Amari Cooper. Listen, Cooper has had concentration lapses as bad as anyone in the NFL, tying Mike Evans for the league "lead" in drops (10). When you have Cooper on your team, though, you can do this:

Overheard in the film session after Week 7 against the Chargers: "Uh, Derek, here's the thing. When you know your receiver's route will take him and the corner covering him directly into safety coverage, basically creating a natural double-team, maybe don't just stand there and pop a throw up in the air…. Oh, Amari went up and caught it? Um. OK. Never mind." In other words: sometimes it really is OK to just put up a 50-50 ball and let your stud first-rounder make a play.

I watch every NFL game on tape, and certainly I develop opinions about players from week to week and season to season, but I also try to stay flexible enough to allow players to surprise me. Carr has surprised me. I actually thought he started the season slowly: he got hurt Week 1 against the Bengals, and then I gave him negative marks for Week 2 against the Ravens and Week 5 against the Broncos. Since then, though, he's really had only one total rookie-season-esque clunker, a Week 10 game against Minnesota. What's evident is actually what's lacking: spates of bad reads, defensive backs dropping sure interceptions, and passes zinged over receivers heads or at their feet. I'm impressed. To this point, it seems he's clearly improved.

Spinning this evaluation forward for fantasy football? Clean tape doesn't always equal tons of fantasy points! I thought Carr played acceptably well overall in that Lions game—the poor throw I illustrated above notwithstanding—yet he only produced six fantasy points. He was pretty clean last week against the Chiefs, and only scored 13. In Week 14, with the fantasy playoffs on the line, Carr has to travel to Denver and face what by most accounts (mine included) is the best pass defense in the NFL. Back in Week 5, he was sloppy against the Broncos. I sure don't love the idea of starting him Sunday, but the exciting thing about Carr is the fact that I'd even consider it.

Christopher Harris (@HarrisFootball) is a six-time Fantasy Sports Writing Association award winner. He hosts the Harris Football Podcast every weekday. Find it on iTunes, Stitcher, TuneIn and most other podcast apps, as well as at www.HarrisFootball.com.