Carr needed help, which seemed to arrive after the 2005 season. Capers was fired, and Houston again had the first overall pick. When owner Bob McNair interviewed potential replacements, the first question he posed wasn't whom the team should draft but how they were going to use Reggie Bush. Broncos offensive coordinator Gary Kubiak had all the right answers. Kubiak even told McNair he was sure the Texans could win a Super Bowl with Carr as their quarterback. So McNair picked up Carr's $8 million option. And the quarterback grew hopeful about the prospect of working with John Elway's tutor and Matt Leinart's safety valve.
But everyone knows what happened next: Houston opted for defensive end Mario Williams. "People are always going to ask why." Carr says, "and I'm one of those people."
Still, with Kubiak there was reason to be optimistic. The new coach taught Carr to slow down, to breathe as he read his progressions, to trust. Then a starting lineman went down in September--meaning Carr would have to set up behind a patched pocket for the fifth year in a row--and the QB reverted to his old ways. He knew it but was too beaten down to do anything about it. He had happy feet, rushed his passes, wondered as he threw whether his release was high enough. Carr was, he says, "just trying to survive."
While Carr was publicly applauded for leading the NFL in completion percentage, his coaches privately dismissed it. According to one former staffer, Kubiak and offensive coordinator Mike Sherman estimated that Carr's panicked progressions cost Johnson at least 500 receiving yards.
...it got so bad that other players in the huddle could hear coaches yelling at Carr through his helmet earpiece.
