It's a weekly Carr wreck for Houston's Quarterback
By Greg Bishop
Seattle Times staff reporter
Friday, October 14, 2005

The most pummeled quarterback in football retains his sense of humor. No matter how bad it gets in Houston, no matter how many times David Carr gets swallowed by a defense and spit out on his back, he can always control that much.

This Carr is continually wrecked. This quarterback has lost more than half a mile in yardage in 47 starts in the NFL, lost four games to start this season, lost just about everything, really, including playoff expectations for his team and Pro Bowl expectations for himself.

And yet here is Carr on a conference call Wednesday. He's laughing. He's joking that his wife cooks so well he can overcome the pain. He's noting that "a lot of people are praying for me back home." That would be praying for his safety, praying for his health.

"God put me here for a reason," Carr says. "He didn't put me here to get beat up."

This was supposed to be the year that Carr and the Texans turned the corner. They took him No. 1 overall in the 2002 draft, and they have grown together, the expansion team and the quarterback who literally felt its growing pains.

Carr improved in nearly every statistical category over his first three seasons, improved his touchdown passes, his completion percentage, his yards per game and passer rating. The Texans, meanwhile, improved their win total from four to five to seven.

What didn't change has made Carr infamous. He's that guy, the most-sacked quarterback in the NFL, sacked more times than Donald Trump employees, sacked an NFL-record 76 times in 2002, sacked 15 times in 2003, sacked 49 times in 2004 and sacked 27 times in four games this season.

At this pace, Carr will shatter his old record with 108 sacks this season.

"He won't have 108," says Jim Zorn, Seahawks quarterbacks coach. "They'll get it together. Or he'll get injured."

He pauses, chewing on Carr's situation.

"I can relate to that a little bit," Zorn says.

Zorn quarterbacked the expansion Seahawks in 1976, where he spent a fair amount of time scrambling for his football life.

His advice for Carr is twofold: Learn to throw the ball away, don't worry about completion percentage. In fact, don't worry about it, period.

"It's something you can't worry about," Zorn says. "You think about it. You might think about it before the game, during the week. But once you're in the game, you can't think about it."

If only it were that easy. Then Carr could just push away the punishment, concentrate on his reads, and fire footballs down the field to receivers he admits he "feels bad" for.

The problem, according to Dr. Richard Crowley, is that Carr compounds his woes by not addressing them. As a psychologist based in California, Crowley teaches a technique called "mental mechanics" to help athletes overcome their mental blocks. He points to Carr's statistical drop this season from the one before, in which he still took 49 sacks, to show decline.

"There's a pattern going on," Crowley says, "and a lot of it is out of his control. But the decrease in performance indicates that it's catching up with him. Something weird is happening. A disconnect that has him totally out of sync. And not addressing it is likely anxiety."

Fellow Fresno State alumnus and former Seahawk Trent Dilfer met Carr when the latter was in junior high. He watched Carr in his senior season at Fresno State, watched in person how hard Carr took a loss to Boise State his senior season, and came away impressed with Carr's resolve.

Dilfer says he took more than 50 sacks in two seasons when he played in Tampa Bay. "You can't let sacks bother you," he says.

"I worry about him," Dilfer says. "I worried he was never going to get a chance to succeed. Starting with a new franchise, it's so hard to be successful early on. He's handled the pressure pretty well."

All of them have advice for Carr. Crowley suggests seeing a sports psychologist. Former NFL quarterback Jack Thompson suggests "begging management" for some better linemen. Others suggest mastering the art of not taking a sack.

Thompson knows better than most. He took his fair share of punishment playing for early versions of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, having already played for Cincinnati behind "great lines" that were "like a breath of fresh air." The difference, Thompson says, is how the line affects a quarterback's internal clock.

"You just feel it," Thompson says. "The older you get, the more it plays into your mind. When you're young and brash, you feel like you're going to live forever. If it continues, it can seep into your psyche. And it will continue to haunt you, trust me, long after football is over."

Thompson estimates he has had eight surgeries since his career ended. Pain for Carr is much more immediate, at least for now.

The Texans enter their Sunday night game against the Seahawks ranked last in total offense and passing yards. They bring only one offensive-line starter not adjusting to a new position this week or competing with someone else to keep his job.

"You get frustrated at times because you spend so much time in the film room, you spend so much time with the wide receivers, you go into the game with such expectations," Carr says, "and you don't get an opportunity."

The opportunity is there for the Seahawks defense, a unit rarely noted for sacks. And here's how bad things have gotten for Carr: A former teammate who would love to add to that sack total this weekend actually feels sorry for him.

"It's tough to see him go out there and get hit so many times," Seahawks linebacker Jamie Sharper says. "That's going to shake his confidence somewhat. The main thing for us is to keep that frustration going for another week. Guys are going to be licking their chops to go after him."