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Jon Gruden and Mike Mayock have done a pretty good job of saying all the right things when it comes to Derek Carr, but not completely shutting down the idea of making a move at quarterback. The Las Vegas Raiders appear to be set at the position for the time being, but there are those who have suggested the team is about to draft a quarterback.
Considering the NFL offseason could be unorthodox due to stay-at-home orders related to the outbreak of COVID-19, it would be a mistake to make a major change at quarterback. Mayock knows this and is glad he has a proven veteran to lead the team.
“We’re very appreciative to have Derek Carr,” Mayock said Tuesday on a conference call. “Jon [Gruden’s] offense, he’s going into year three of it. Marcus Mariota, Jon and I both know him very, very well. We feel really good about the quarterback position.”
Those comments don’t sound like a man who is about to invest a first-round pick in a quarterback. At this point, it’s very hard to imagine Carr won’t be the Week 1 starter for the Raiders in 2020.
Mayock Talks Mariota
One big thing the Raiders wanted to do in free agency was to give Carr a solid backup. He’s pretty much always had career backups playing behind him and never had to work to keep the starting gig. With the addition of Marcus Mariota, the Raiders now have a viable option to start in case Carr struggles or gets injured. The former number two overall pick has struggled quite a bit over the last few seasons, but Mike Mayock sounds confident that the Raiders can help fix him.
“The cool thing with my background and Jon’s background is a lot of things that we said and did in our past are public,” Mayock said. “So if you’re Marcus Mariota and you want to know what the General Manager of the Raiders thought about him before he came out, or what Jon Gruden thought about him before he came out, all you’ve got to do is go back and check public records. I mean, he went through Gruden’s quarterback camp on television. I had him as the top quarterback in that draft. He knew that both of us believed in him coming out and still believe in him. He’s got to get healthy. We’ve got to rebuild him a little bit, get his confidence back, build him up from the ground up. It’s going to take a little while, I think, just to get him healthy and where he wants to be, but we’re excited about the quarterback room.”
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Mayock Appreciates How Mariota Has Handled Carr Questions
Many will try to create a quarterback controversy between Carr and Mariota, but the latter has been nothing but class since signing with the team. Mayock noted that he likes how the quarterback has been handling things.
“I thought Marcus did a great job with first couple of interviews he had, just talking about where he was, which is wanting to support Derek. He wants to become the best version of Marcus Mariota that he can become, and that’s the way we look at it. Let’s see who the best Marcus Mariota is, and in the meantime, we love what we have with Derek Carr. We’re real happy with our quarterback room. We’ve got Nathan Peterman, who played well until he was hurt, and DeShone Kizer, a former second-round pick [of the Browns]. So we feel we’ve got a very strong quarterback room.”
Mayock sounds very confident with what the Raiders have at quarterback and should be because they have solid depth. Some will argue that they aren’t good enough at starter, but Carr had a good season in 2019. If he can be better in 2020, the Raiders will have a strong shot at getting to the playoffs.
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