Getty Las Vegas Raiders head coach Josh McDaniels.
Wide receiver was not a huge need for the Las Vegas Raiders this offseason but the team has made several key moves at the position. Landing Jakobi Meyers on a three-year deal was the biggest move but the team wasn’t done there. They also added Cam Sims and Phillip Dorsett while re-signing Keelan Cole.
The Raiders have decided to add another name to the mix. According to Jordan Schultz of The Score, Las Vegas signed veteran wide receiver DeAndre Carter to a one-year deal worth up to $2.375 million.
Carter confirmed the news on his verified Twitter account.
This isn’t the first time he’ll be a member of the Raiders. Carter spent a few months on the team’s practice squad when he was a rookie in 2015. He never had a chance to play in a game for the team. He was originally an undrafted free agent of the Baltimore Ravens and has bounced around the NFL quite a bit. He has played with nine different teams over his career, including stints with the San Francisco 49ers and New England Patriots that saw him play with Jimmy Garoppolo and Raiders head coach Josh McDaniels. There should be plenty of familiar faces on the squad for Carter.
Carter Coming off Career Year
Carter has been in the NFL for a while now but never got a chance to make much of an impact. That was until last season with the Los Angeles Chargers. He had 46 catches for 538 yards and three touchdowns, which were all career highs. The Chargers needed a receiver to step up with Keenan Allen missing much of the season with an injury and Carter was able to do that.
He’s been in the NFL for a while but is only 29. He has a chance to prove that 2022 wasn’t a fluke for him. If he can put up good numbers in a loaded Raiders wide receiver corps, he could be in for a much better payday next year. The team has a lot of receivers who are good in the middle of the field. Carter has 4.44 40-yard dash speed so he should be able to stretch the field vertically if the team needs him to.
McDaniels Talks WR Corps
While the Raiders lost Darren Waller and Mack Hollins this offseason, they are still poised to have one of the best wide receivers corps in the NFL. Davante Adams and Hunter Renfrow are Pro Bowl players while Meyers is an excellent No. 3 receiver. Carter, Sims, Cole and Dorsett give the team very good depth. In an interview with The Athletic, McDaniels had a chance to talk about his new-look wide receiver corps:
There’s just a lot of versatility. Today’s game is so much about how you get defended and how they’re defending our people, specifically. And so, the fact that those guys have enough flexibility and versatility to move around the formation and create issues or trouble trying to double them or what have you in coverage, to me, it makes us better. We’ve had the years where we had (Julian) Edelman and (Danny) Amendola together. And we had them with (Brandin) Cooks and then we had Edelman and Amendola together with (Rob) Gronkowski, you know what I mean? And so, there’s elements that the more that they can do, the more places they can line up — and those guys are all smart and can move around and adapt — I think, hopefully, the more problems it can create for the defense.