Deuce: Derek Carr's big day exactly what Saints were looking for in new offense

Just about everything went right for the Saints in a 47-10 beatdown of the Panthers to kick off the 2024 NFL season, and that included the performance of quarterback Derek Carr.

The Saints signal-caller executed all day long during his first foray into the new scheme brought in by OC Klint Kubiak, and as WWL's Deuce McAllister explained, it was exactly what the team should've been looking for.

"Derek played well," McAllister said after the game. "He did exactly what you wanted him to do within the offense. He distributed the ball around to different guys, he made some good calls, good checks."

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The final numbers were 19-23 for 200 yards and 3 touchdowns. The day could've been even better if not for a pair of impressive PBUs by Panthers defensive backs on deep balls knocked out of the hands of Rashid Shaheed and Taysom Hill that would've resulted in touchdowns. Carr's three scores went to Shaheed on a deep ball on the Saints' offensive possession, then high-pointed grabs to Foster Moreau and Juwan Johnson after Carr extended the play. Alvin Kamara and Jamaal Williams added another pair of scores on the ground.

The Saints called off the dogs for the final two offensive series with backup Jake Haener taking over. The Saints scored on their first nine possessions of the game before the final two drives ended in punts. The 47 points scored were the most ever for the Saints in a season opener, as was the 30 points registered in the first half.

"I thought that, you know, the one player that you want to get a little bit more involved is Chris Olave, but his opportunities will come. I don’t think that you can fuss too much when you win by 37 points, you know, you ran the football really, really well," McAllister continued. "I think that was one of the things that you knew that you wanted to do, so I think that it’s not perfect by any stretch of the imagination now, because there’s some stuff that, you know, there was two drives that you had where you had penalties and the defense had given you a turnover. You ended up having to settle for field goals, so if you can turn that around and make it touchdowns instead of field goals it probably looks even better."

MORE FROM DEUCE

On the offensive line

“I thought they gave [Kamara] lanes. I thought they gave [Carr] time, you only had what, one screen to Alvin. Carolina did a good job of kind of sniffing it out, but outside of that I thought you were able to get the ball, you moved the pocket a little bit, you were able to get the ball down the field, so to be able to do that, I mean, the quarterback’s got time and so you had a plus-60, like I said, one of the things we were looking for with this team is some of the YAC yards and you can do some things like that, that definitely helps”

On Alontae Taylor's big day

“It was only one time that they ran a zone blitz that they didn’t get to the quarterback. Outside of that Alontae Taylor was able to get to the quarterback every time they ran that zone blitz and so I think that was something that they’d seen from a scouting standpoint and he was able to make a play. Even one time, the last sack, he kind of got picked off a little bit but he was still able to get around the back and make a play on the quarterback, so a really, really good job for Alontae Taylor. When his number was called he was able to make a play.P”