Derek Carr is one of the cheaper franchise quarterbacks in the league. And that’s quite the boon for Jon Gruden’s Las Vegas Raiders. As noted in our Raiders riding out the storm with Derek Carr piece, Carr is as team-friendly as it can get with a modest $22.125 million cap number in 2021 (that’s a
Does Derek Carr do another ‘team-friendly’ deal with Raiders?
I think the Raiders would be wise to wait and see what happens next season before extending Carr. I would like to see Carr string together back to back strong seasons.
You say Carr is a bargain, I say he was the highest paid QB in the history of the NFL when he signed his current deal and woefully underperformed. We have seen this movie for 7yrs already, it never leads to a happy ending.
If QB ratings would’ve taken into account the ‘degree of difficulty’ aspect of their play, Carr’s rankings that his fan-boys salivate over would not have been so inflated and discussion about him would be far more realistic. You just need to check the distribution of his target depth and the corresponding completion rate to understand that, not to mention his more than underwhelming completion rate in the red zone.
People fail to recognize that Gruden’s offense never relied on exceptional level of skill in his QBs. Whether you agree or disagree with it, he always called passing plays in inverse proportion to their degree of difficulty and downfield target depth, strongly favoring easy-to-complete types of passes. He did quite well with game manager type QBs such as Gannon in Oakland and Brad Johnson in Tampa. [Gannon was even an MVP in Gruden’s offense (Calahan did neither change the playbook nor even the naming, which cost the Raiders deatrly in the Superbowl) without (almost) ever throwing more than 20 yards downfield]. With just an average defense, to avoid so many of the losses caused by the atrocious play of recent Raiders’ defenses, even the risk averse Teddy Bridgewater would easily be an MVP candidate running the Gruden-style offense.
Mariota is a better, more complete QB than either Gannon, Johnson or Bridgewater. He could easily enjoy at least as much success as Carr running the Gruden’s offense, possibly even with more upside as he would open the playbook with his excellent running ability.
At this point, Carr’s trade value is the highest it ever was or will be. Raiders should very carefully evaluate all the trade offers for Carr, since they could get a lot of high draft picks picks for him and free up $19.6 mm in cap space that would go a long way of addressing their primary needs on defense. For example, with very little additional money, those funds would allow Raiders to make a very determined effort to sign a game-changing defensive tackle Leonard Williams ((27, 6’5″, 304)) from the NY Giants – not only the best interior puss rusher after Aaron Donald (62 QB pressures, at 12.3% rate, 13 sacks in 2020) but also an excellent run stopper (30 run stops, at 10.3% rate, only 4 missed tackles in 2020). He would make the defense significantly better, with that improvement being far more significant than the potential loss on the offensive side, if any.
Looks like the Raiders are rejecting all offers for their QB, and unless the extremely unlikely thing happens involving Watson, then Carr is the Raiders’ franchise QB. That has become abundantly clear. Time to start getting behind him and rooting for him to succeed, especially if you want the Raiders to succeed…IMO.
Ditto i second that. Build a defense that can hit the qb or as i like to say. Hit the Muppet of KC
We have had what 5 – 1st round draft picks over the last two years? Jacobs is solid. Obviously 1st round draft pick talent evaluation has not been the Raiders strong suit. What makes people think that getting more draft picks with Gruden running the show is a good thing, lol.
Great point, Todd. It’s what teams do with their draft picks that count. Same goes with free agency. Signing tight end Darren Waller off the Ravens practice squad is akin to acquiring a first-round draft pick for free. Squandering the No. 4 pick overall is the same as throwing away a first-rounder. The harsh reality is, Jon Gruden and Mike Mayock whiffed on Clelin Ferrell and Johnathan Abram in the first round two years ago, based upon what we know right now, and did likewise last year with Henry Ruggs III and Damon Arnette, with an admittedly small sample size coupled with what they bypassed at those spots. The onus is upon Gruden and Mayock to change the perception.