When you think of church services, you also often think about middling NFL quarterbacks crashing out over shoulder injuries.
Derek Carr found a unique way to combine the two over the weekend.
After passing on Shedeur Sanders and Jaxson Dart in Round 1, the New Orleans Saints opted to take a quarterback who very well could take Carr’s job. Tyler Shough, New Orleans’ second round pick out of Louisville, joins a room that includes Spencer Rattler and Jake Haener, in addition to Derek Carr, who might sit out the entire 2025 season due to a previously undisclosed shoulder injury.
Leading up to the 2025 NFL Draft, the Saints were tight-lipped about Derek Carr’s status, refusing to answer any questions regarding his health. But the veteran QB decided to take matters into his own hands while delivering a sermon over the weekend.
“Yes, I have to say this,” Carr said via Pro Football Talk. “I hate that I have to say this, but I have to say this. Yes, I have a shoulder injury, despite what ESPN says. And what some lady on a podcast might think, OK? I have an MRI report to prove it. The team knows about it. We’ve been in constant communication. There’s nothing wrong. We’re figuring it out, and we’re gonna go forward with that. Is that OK?”
NFL Network was the first to report Derek Carr’s shoulder injury on April 11, a detail that had remained private until days before the Saints’ voluntary offseason workouts began.
Later, ESPN’s Katherine Terrell added that some assistant coaches were caught off guard by the news. However, it remains unclear when the team was made aware of Carr’s injury.
As for the severity of the injury? That’s still uncertain. And as for the identity of the “lady on a podcast”? Also uncertain.
“And I’ve been dealing with this, and I’ve been dealing with people lying about me, and I’ve been dealing with them saying this and this and that, and I’m like, ‘Lord, why do I have to continue to deal with this nonsense? Like, what is going on?’ And I said that to a preface with you never know what someone’s really going through,” Carr continued.
“And so why do we continually try to attack people? And I would say attack people that are trying to do things maybe the right way. Why do we continually try? Why do we always have to have an opinion? Why do we — Twitter and Instagram has ruined things for some people? Because now all these people think that they have voices that have to be heard, and so like some people’s voices don’t need to be heard right now. I’ve just got to be honest with you. Because not one of our opinions in here matters. Did you know that? The only opinion that matters is that text right there. It is the word of God. And everything must bow at that.”
It was basically Derek Carr airing his grievances, venting about the perils of social media.
Sure, it’s tough to drum up sympathy for a $100 million quarterback who hasn’t lived up to the billing of being the answer to life after Drew Brees in The Big Easy, but Derek Carr’s situation still deserves at least some sympathy.
In the same breath of his two-hour diatribe, he shared a heart-wrenching personal story that while the Saints were figuring out what to do about his shoulder, he had to rush his wife to the Emergency Room after a miscarriage for a pregnancy they hadn’t even known about.
Derek Carr also said when they were scheduled to go to NOLA to figure out his shoulder injury, he had to rush his wife to ER. She had a miscarriage when they didnt know she was pregnant.
— Sean FazendeFOX8 (@SeanFazendeFOX8) April 28, 2025
There are many things we don’t know, including the nature of Derek Carr’s shoulder injury. And after the events of the past couple of weeks, the 34-year-old veteran quarterback seems inclined to keep it that way.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.