Another post-game presser, another question posed to Raiders quarterback Derek Carr regarding his future with the Silver and Black. Another mid-morning ESPN broadcast of NFL Live with the skeleton crew of analysts criticizing Carr without providing a lick of data other than emotional perception. Finally Carr is starting to push back in interviews, and it’s high time we put an end to this Derek Carr hate for good.
It’s becoming tiresome Carr has to keep answering these questions when the Raiders clearly answered it in this past month’s 2019 NFL Draft. No quarterbacks taken, even with strong options up top, and GM Mike Mayock and head coach Jon Gruden did nothing but add weapons to compliment the now sixth-year franchise QB. Still, after that clear statement, Carr has to answer these questions over and over.
It’s like something somehow will magically change in the length of one OTA workout.
“Honestly, it got annoying after a while,” Carr said in his first meeting with Bay Area media since the 2018 season ended. “I’m like, ‘Really, they don’t have nothing else to talk about?’ And I didn’t help the situation, trying to challenge people to fights.”
Derek Carr responds to the buzz that the team was going to draft a QB. He says everyone is going to have to get used to him because he's going to be around playing QB for the #Raiders for awhile. pic.twitter.com/jDyoR6Y88o
— Heidi Fang (@HeidiFang) May 21, 2019
You can tell it’s starting to bother Carr, who was feisty all offseason while Twitter beefing with ESPN’s Stephen A. Smith and challenging him to an UFC match (which may explain the national news media’s noticeable hostility directed at Carr). The dude is getting to the point where his “nice guy” personality is going to hit a breaking point.
Maybe that’s the point. Maybe these reporters are attempting to goad him into a clickable sound bite. Maybe not. Whatever reason they seem to circle back to this same question nearly every single day, it’s time it stop.
Whenever asked, Gruden rarely goes off-script when it comes to Carr. If we take his words as genuine, it’s blatantly clear Coach Chucky is a fan.
“He’s pretty well respected as one of the best arm talents in football,” Gruden said. “I think he’s a lot more athletic than people think. I think if we can get some continuity here in this building, with the system and with the supporting cast, and we can improve the defense, I think he can be one of the best in football. I’m going to hold him to that standard, and I think that’s what he wants.”
Carr had no weapons last year, a defense that held its opponent score below 20 just once, and was also learning a new system. His “down year” still included a career-high 4,049 passing yards with 19 touchdowns and just 10 interceptions. His QB Rating was a solid 93.9 yet he is somehow hated on by the news media.
In fact, he and Chicago Bears quarterback Mitchell Trubisky may have their own special little club. Both QBs are routinely and constantly underrated by critics and “experts,” while they continue to show — time and time again — they have a special “it” factor.
With regards to the “Clutch Gene” prevalent in all the great quarterbacks in NFL history, no QB in NFL history has more fourth-quarter comebacks through their first five seasons than Carr. And since entering the league in 2014, Carr is tied for first among all QBs in fourth-quarter comebacks and ranks third in game-winning drives during the same time span. In 2016, he notched seven game-winning drives, which was good for second-best in NFL history for a single season.
Carr is entering the third year of his five-year, $125 million extension, and his $19.9 million base salary for this year is already guaranteed. His cap hit is relatively small at $5 million if they were to cut or trade him next offseason. If he struggles out of the gate, expect the questions to start piling up, but — least for now — there’s no use beating a dead horse here.
