Derek Carr and Russell Wilson are both good quarterbacks. They both have had some solid quarterback play this season despite their team records. But who is better? Let’s take a look at their stats and see where they rank against each other.
Derek Carr (18th)
2022 stats: 9 games | 62.4 pct | 2,128 pass yds | 6.8 ypa | 13 pass TD | 5 INT | 67 rush yds | 0 rush TD | 3 fumbles
Per NFL.com: Carr oozed raw frustration in the presser following Sunday’s loss to the Colts. He’s a passionate leader who wears these tight losses — the Raiders are 0-6 in one-score games — on his sleeve. Carr is part of the problem and he knows it. Against an Indy team left for dead, he found Davante Adams on a pretty 48-yard catch-and-run score and hit 13 straight completions. That makes his play sound better than it was — he misses too many throws — but it’s a chore spinning spells minus Darren Waller and Hunter Renfrow. The deeper concern is that Carr and Josh McDaniels, mired in a dark hellscape of a season, simply don’t vibe as a match.
Russell Wilson (25th)
2022 stats: 8 games | 57.4 pct | 1,980 pass yds | 7.3 ypa | 7 pass TD | 5 INT | 121 rush yds | 1 rush TD | 4 fumbles
Per NFL.com: Wilson was taken to town by a ferocious Titans defense that dished out six sacks and hit Russ 17 times — the most shots a QB has endured since Charlie Frye was taken behind the woodshed in 2006. Fourteen of those hits and each of the takedowns came when Wilson held the ball for more than 2.6 seconds. Awkwardly paired with a marvelous Denver defense that held the Titans to 17 points, Wilson and the “attack” managed nine punts, a hideous pick and 10 points. Russ hit Jalen Virgil on a meaty 66-yard catch-and-run score, but Denver averaged a troubling 4.3 yards per play and feels no closer to an awakening.
Final thoughts:
There’s always a lot of debate in football about who the best quarterback is. People have their favorite teams and players, and they tend to rank them accordingly. However, there are some objective measures that can be used to compare quarterbacks and see who’s really at the top of the game. For example, Las Vegas Raiders quarterback Derek Carr has a career passer rating of 96.7, which ranks him fifth all-time. He also ranks sixth in career completion percentage and seventh in yards per attempt.
Denver Broncos quarterback Russell Wilson, on the other hand, has a career passer rating of 105.0, which ranks him second all-time. He also ranks first in career completion percentage and second in yards per attempt. So when it comes to raw numbers, Wilson is clearly the better quarterback. However, Carr has been more consistent throughout his career, completing at least 60 percent of his passes in every season since 2015. Wilson has only done that twice in his eight-year career.
So while Wilson may have higher numbers overall, Carr has been more reliable on a week-to-week basis. It’s tough to say definitively who the better quarterback is, but these numbers give us a good idea of where each player stands.
Despite being last in the division, Derek Carr has played exceptionally well this season. With a hobbled receiving corps, he’s still managed to put up impressive numbers. This week, he goes up against Denver’s Russell Wilson. While Wilson is having a subpar season, I think Carr has the edge and will come out victorious on Sunday.
