At this point in his career, it’s safe to say that Oakland Raiders starting quarterback Derek Carr struggles in cold-weather games. The recent loss to the New York Jets was far from his fault, but there’s no denying that a trend has started to develop. The quarterback is 0-4 in games where the temperature goes under 40 degrees. With a freezing game on the docket against the Kansas City Chiefs, Carr is going to have to reverse the trend if he’s going to silence the doubters.
Carr’s former head coach Jack Del Rio has been one of his biggest defenders, but even he acknowledged that the quarterback struggles in cold weather.
It’s unclear if Del Rio is saying Carr doesn’t like cold weather games because he told the coach, or it’s just based on his observations. Regardless, Del Rio should know Carr better than anybody. He coached him for three seasons, which is more than any other coach has in the NFL. Carr has lived in either California or Texas for most of his life. Not exactly the coldest climates. However, there are many quarterbacks who are from California, like Aaron Rodgers, who thrive in cold-weather states.
Carr has proven he’s good enough to be the team’s franchise quarterback, but he’s going to need to show improvement in sub-40 weather if he’s ever going to lead the team to the Super Bowl.
Pound the Rock
When the Raiders travel to Kansas City to play the Chiefs, it’s going to be very cold. It should be in the high-30s range. Carr has been very bad at Arrowhead stadium in his career and has never won a game there. Even in the midst of his amazing 2016 season, he completely laid an egg there. He went 17 of 41 and had a 49.1 passer rating. The cold weather plays a factor as it’s usually cold this time of year in Kansas City.
Having a big game on Sunday would mean good things for Carr and would shut up a lot of the doubters. However, it seems unlikely based on his history. The Raiders need to rely on running back Josh Jacobs for this game. Kansas City has one of the worst run defenses in the NFL and Jacobs needs to bounce back after the worst game of his career. Jon Gruden should take the game out of Carr’s hands and put it into Jacobs’.
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Jack Del Rio Defends Himself
After the 2016 season, it looked like the Raiders had built a powerhouse that was ready to be formidable for years to come. Despite having one of the best offenses in the NFL, Jack Del Rio decided not to bring back offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave. He instead promoted quarterbacks coach Todd Downing to offensive coordinator, who was very disappointing. The wheels fell off in 2017 and the Raiders went 6-10 and none of the coaches were retained. Somebody on Twitter recently called out Del Rio for letting Musgrave go and the coach responded.
His decision has remained a mystery, but it looks like there was some behind the scenes stuff that hasn’t been revealed to the public. Musgrave hasn’t exactly had great success outside of his time with the Raiders, so maybe Del Rio thought the offense wasn’t reaching its full potential. Well, if the former head coach played things differently, things could be very different in Oakland right now.
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Former Raiders Head Coach Calls out Derek Carr for Cold Weather Play