4 QBs who deserve to be benched after their Week 16 performance

Derek Carr

The New Orleans Saints have so many issues, and it's tough to untangle and isolate one from another. Head coach Dennis Allen and offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael both deserve quite a bit of blame. But Derek Carr has not been a good enough quarterback to overcome those issues.

It's hard to diagnose the coaching and quarterback issue independently from one another. We've seen Taysom Hill and Jameis Winston under center in various circumstances this year -- Hill typically for gadget plays, Winston when Carr has been injured -- to varying degrees of success.

But with the Saints playoff chances dropping all the way to under 20 percent with a Week 16 loss to the Rams (where it would have been above 70 percent with a win), New Orleans ought to try something new. Fans would certainly love it, with the team drawing boos when replacing Hill with Carr under center just a few weeks ago.

In Week 16, Carr was one of just five quarterbacks (in the pre-4pm slates) with a CPOE worse than -2.5 percent and one of five quarterbacks who had above-average dropbacks with below-average EPA. The others? Trevor Siemien, Jake Browning, Gardner Minshew and Easton Stick.

Carr is, statistically, performing in-line with the backups. Maybe it's time he gets relegated to that position with the season hanging on by a thread.