Everyone uses a little bit of exaggerated and colorful language. The point is that last season Penning struggled in 6 starts and Carr did get an injury that nagged him the rest of the season. Also, although Carr refused to miss games, he had 2 concussions and a nagging shoulder injury last year where perhaps he would have missed games. To me, if Penning was a turnstile this year and we played him anyway, the odds of Carr getting injured could be pretty high, if not 100%. If the oline was worse and Carr increased from 2 concussions last year to 3-4 in 2024 that alone might end his career. Also we saw at least two older QBs have season ending injuries last year early on in Rodgers and Cousins. Both of them had been relatively healthy before, just like Carr. So if Penning was a turnstile, it just could not be that crazy for Carr to suffer a similar fate to what two of his closest veteran QB piers did just last year. Rodgers contract was the closest to Carrs among veteran QBs switching teams in 2023, and Cousins was the closest 2024 transaction to those two, so if two of three can suffer major ACL type injuries out of the blue after years of health, the risk to Carr is real if our oline is a sieve.

Another key difference is that Carr could have a $30 million financial incentive to get injured if he struggles too much this year. If he struggles, he would stand to be cut, and have diminished value as a free agent two teams have given up on, more of a Russ Wilson or Ryan Tannehill type option. But if he got hurt, his salary guarantees right at the start of the league year, and he could not be cut while hurt, so it could be tempting to 'rehab slow.' Last year Carr's upcoming salary was already guaranteed so there was no big financial incentive either way. I hope our oline is decent because I worry both that a weak oline could get Carr injury and cause him to struggle in a way that might tempt him to stay injured. This may sound wacky and far fetched but this exact line of thought was what caused the Raiders to bench Carr and the Broncos to bench Wilson, fear of triggering guarantees in big QB contracts with injury is a real topic on every GMs mind.