When Josh McDaniels took the Las Vegas Raiders, he was quick to make it clear that Derek Carr was going to be his quarterback going forward. It didn’t take long for him to shut down any rumors about the quarterback’s future and the team even handed Carr a contract extension. It took less than a year for things to sour.
In fact, things may have soured much earlier than most people realized. The Raiders recently decided to bench Carr after being the starter for nine years. The final nail in his coffin was a three-interception performance against the Pittsburgh Steelers but it’s a move the team has been mulling for a while. According to Vincent Bonsignore of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, the Raiders realized that Carr wasn’t the guy early in the season:
The Raiders concluded Carr was not a long-term fit within weeks of the start of the season. Benching him eliminated the risk of a $40 million injury guarantee kicking in had he gotten hurt in the final two games of the season.
The Raiders were determined not to be handcuffed to a quarterback they no longer believed in and one that represented a major drag on their 2023 salary cap.
When Exactly Did Raiders Sour on Carr?
The Raiders had a terrible start to the season. They initially lost their first three games and then dropped to 2-7. In that span, the team had some ugly losses against the Arizona Cardinals, New Orleans Saints and Indianapolis Colts. Bonsignore was vague about when exactly the Raiders started to sour on Carr.
It’s hard to imagine it would’ve been the Week 2 loss to the Cardinals. The team did blow a 20-0 lead in that game but it was still early in the season and Carr’s numbers were fine. It’s possible that the 24-0 loss to the Saints is what made the team change directions. Against a mediocre New Orleans team, Carr threw for 101 yards and an interception. He couldn’t even lead the Raiders into Saints territory. There have been some really rough points for Carr this season so it’s difficult to know when exactly Las Vegas knew they weren’t moving forward with him.
How Raiders Plan to Move on From Carr
In a perfect world, the Raiders would be able to trade Carr for some draft picks. However, his contract guarantees kick in on February 15th but the team can’t technically trade him until March. It would be easy to work something out if Carr was forcing a trade but that’s not the case. He has no reason to help the Raiders out. In the end, the team may just have to cut him outright and let him pick his next team with a trade proving difficult, per Bonsignore:
To mitigate the risk of a team backing out — and being stuck with Carr and his contract — they and Carr could renegotiate an extension on the deadline that pushes it beyond the start of the league year.
From Carr’s perspective, doing so would help keep intact the three-year, $121 million extension he signed last offseason and the all-important $40 million guarantee.
If the Raiders can’t trade him, they are willing to cut him and move on while incurring a $5.6 million hard salary cap hit.
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New Leak Shares Eye-Opening Info on Raiders’ Thoughts on Derek Carr