Why Derek Carr and the Raiders are likely headed towards a divorce
After nine years, it seems like Carr will be playing elsewhere. What happened between the pair?
After the news broke on Wednesday that Raiders QB Derek Carr would be inactive for the final two games of the season, people began to speculate about where the end began to come into sight. Was it when Josh McDaniels was hired as head coach, ushering in a new era of Raiders football that was supposed to mimic the Patriot Way?
Was it in 2020, when everyone affiliated with the Raiders tried to coax QB Tom Brady into becoming a Raider, even UFC President Dana White?
Was it during any of the previous nine years and only two playoff appearances, sprinkled in between a broken leg injury?
The answer is, well, its all of it.
Raiders owner Mark Davis gave Carr a short leash entering the year, because the assumption was that with McDaniels and newly acquired WR Davante Adams (who, if you didn’t know, played on the same college team as Carr) would galvanize a career for Carr that has been good, but never great.
Good, but never great. Let’s put a pin in that for a moment and come back to it.
So, Davis brings in Patriot acolytes McDaniels and GM Dave Ziegler, and lets them make the decision with Carr. They choose to stick with Carr, and the hopes were that an offense with Adams, Darren Waller and Hunter Renfrow would get them to the playoffs in a now-star studded AFC West.
Yeah that didn’t happen.
The offense sputtered and looked like it had no direction at times. As many times as Davante Adams has gone supernova this year, he’s also been oddly phased out of second halves. The run game has worked extremely well this season; Josh Jacobs is among the top five in rushing yards. The defense has been horrendous at times despite an All-Pro caliber season by EDGE Maxx Crosby, completely unraveling in the second half.
Speaking of second halves, the Raiders this season are 0-4 with a double digit lead at halftime, the first team to wear that dubious crown. Carr himself has posted career lows in yards per attempt and completion percentage while also having a career high interception rate. His total EPA is at its’ lowest.
In Mark Davis’ eyes, Carr simply hasn’t been good enough—he never was.
There it is again. Good, but never great.
When he was extended in April, he only gets $24.9 million in guarantees instead of the $121.5 million that gets written in tweets and jokes made about Carr. Carr wasn’t benched because he was bad—if he were truly bad he would be the backup, not completely inactive—but because in Davis’ eyes, he’s bad and expensive. If Carr were to get injured, that $24.9 million goes up to $33 million fully guaranteed. Not exactly a number that Davis wants his team to pay.
Carr has withstood the toughest of times with the Raiders. From the move to Las Vegas from Oakland, from the racist, homophobic and sexist emails former coach Jon Gruden sent that got him fired, Carr stood through it all.
However, in Mark Davis’ eyes, that was never good enough. Carr was never good enough.