Yeah, this has been a really messy divorce. In the wake of the Super Bowl fanfare, the Raiders and Derek Carr have made some news by the QB not waiving his no-trade clause to join the New Orleans Saints in a deal.
It’s disappointing that the two sides couldn’t come to a mutual agreement, but I guess getting rid of Carr was going to happen one way or another.
Now, I’m not one of the people who was advocating for Carr to get moved on as there really isn’t that many QBs of a similar quality on the market to replace him. Aside from Carr, the best QB that will hit the free agent market is probably going to be Jimmy Garoppolo, Baker Mayfield, Daniel Jones (who’s going to be resigned by the Giants), or Taylor Heinicke.
Of course, all of these players can play in the NFL and win a few games (some more than others), but none of these guys can realistically be argued to be better than Derek Carr.
Carr’s a 4X Pro-Bowler, a 9-year veteran of the league, a 4-star captain (soon to be former) of the Raiders, he’s thrown for 35,000+ yards, 200+ TDs, has a career TD-INT ratio of approximately 2-1, has completed over 3,000 passes, and has led the dysfunctional Raiders to the playoffs twice.
He’s easily one of the 20 best QBs in the league today…but being the 20th best QB won’t win anyone division titles, conference championships, or Super Bowls.
Carr’s a solid, capable player (and fantastic leader), but he’s yet to show that he can lead his teams to playoff glory. In fact, he’s never shown that as he was injured the first time his teams made the playoffs (2016) and was defeated by Joe Burrow and the Cincinnati Bengals the only time he played in a playoff game (2021).
Moreover, his Raiders teams have finished 3rd or worst in the AFC West 6 TIMES with Carr as the starter, while they’ve never won the division once in the nine years Carr has been on the team. Simply put, due to the Raiders utter dysfunction, Carr has been a losing quarterback in this league as his 63-79 regular season record and 0-1 playoff record portrays.
That’s why Raiders HC Josh Mcdaniels wants to move on from the QB.
I’m guessing he thinks he’ll be able to either sign a QB from this free agent class or tank for one of the QBs in next year’s draft as they only have the 7th pick in this year’s draft and the best QBs are likely to be gone by then. Personally, I don’t think Josh Mcdaniels is capable of leading a football team as a HC as he’s shown to be more suited to running just the offensive department (as his days in New England proved), but to get rid of Carr for nothing is borderline stupid.
I get the urge to move on from Carr as soon as possible yet allowing him to blow up a trade with the Saints and walk away for nothing (the Raiders have to cut Carr by Tuesday to avoid paying him 40M+) is a sign that the Raiders are still a dysfunctional, devastatingly dumb organization.
Carr has been the FRANCHISE QB for the last decade and is worth at least two 1st round picks on the open market.
I mean, if Russell Wilson can go for 2 1st round picks, 2 2nd Round picks, and 2 NFL starters, Deshaun Watson can go for 3 1st round picks, and Matthew Stafford (who was unproven playoff QB before Rams deal) went for 2 1st round picks, 1 3rd round pick, and a starting NFL QB (Jared Goff), then Carr most definitely can too.
But, in classic 21st century Raiders fashion, they laid all their cards on the table at the start of the poker game and went all in, despite having a weak hand.
And, also in classic 21st century Raiders fashion, it’s going to cost them handsomely as they not only lost out on multiple 1st round picks for Carr, but they also now don’t have a starting QB in a division that boasts of Justin Herbert, Russell Wilson with new HC Sean Payton, and the 2023 Super Bowl champion, 2023 Super Bowl MVP, and 2023 regular season MVP Patrick Mahomes.
Great job, Josh Mcdaniels and Mark Davis.
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