Carr's offensive line allowed him to do things that were relative luxuries for Bortles and Bridgewater, like breathe in the pocket without fearing for his life. Carr was pressured on only 21.6 percent of his dropbacks, the fifth-lowest rate among starting quarterbacks. A quarterback who gets the ball out quickly can distort that number (see: Tom Brady), but other metrics suggest that wasn't the case with Carr. He took 2.44 seconds before his typical pass, 15th in the league. Carr's average throw traveled 7.67 yards in the air, which was slightly below league average and one full yard deeper than the typical Bridgewater pass (6.66)...
It's another Oakland credo to go after enormous receivers. Carr's average pass went to a receiver who was 74.3 inches tall (a little over 6 feet 2), giving him the fourth-largest receiving corps in football. (Jacksonville's grouping was third.) Sadly, they weren't always his friends. Oakland's pass-catchers, which will return virtually unchanged in 2016, dropped 5.1 percent of Carr's throws last year. That was the fifth-worst rate in the league. It's hard to see these receivers combining to drop as many passes in 2016, particularly Cooper, who should be healthier after struggling through plantar fasciitis a year ago. While analyses suggesting Cooper dropped 18 passes seem off the mark, ESPN Stats & Information has Cooper down for 10 drops on 126 targets, the second-highest total in the league behind Tampa's Mike Evans.
The one perhaps concerning quirk surrounding Carr's 2015 season is what happened as it went along: Namely, Carr got worse. A lot worse. His QBR during Weeks 1-9, covering Oakland's first eight games, was 11th in the league at 66.6. During Oakland's final eight games, Carr's QBR dropped to just 35.1, leaving him 28th out of 29 passers. Only Bortles, coincidentally, was worse. Carr's decline came under duress. He had the league's lowest pressure rate during the first half of the year, at 17.6 percent. Over the final eight weeks, that pressure rate leaped up to 25.0 percent. That was only eighth in the league, but it was enough to help throw Carr off track....
There is something that will have to improve, though, fluke or otherwise: Late in games, for whatever reason, Carr was a mess. He posted a 19.9 QBR in the fourth quarter and overtime, which was the second-worst mark in the league ahead of Nick Foles. Bortles, one spot ahead of Carr, finished at 31.2. Seven of Carr's 13 picks came in the fourth quarter and OT, despite the fact that he threw only 31 percent of his passes during that time frame. Only Matthew Stafford had a higher interception rate in the fourth quarter/OT (6.8 percent) than Carr (5.3 percent).
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