News that the Las Vegas Raiders were benching Derek Carr in favour of Jarrett Stidham was shortly followed by the reports that Carr was stepping away from the team until the end of the season. If you read between the lines, it certainly looks like Carr’s time with the Raiders is coming to an abrupt end.
Armed with stacks of offensive talent, including Davante Adams, and a new head coach in Josh McDaniels, the Raiders had lofty ambitions of challenging the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC West while simultaneously making a deep run in the playoffs. With the always impressive Carr at the helm, it seemed possible. Most analysts picked the Raiders to make the postseason via the Wildcard, while some predicted them to win the division against the Chiefs sans Tyreek Hill, the up-and-coming Los Angeles Chargers, and the Denver Broncos.
Whatever the preseason ambitions and expectations were for the Raiders, nothing materialised. They were 0-3 after three games and found new ways to lose each week. If losing in spectacular fashion was en vogue, the Raiders would be walking the runway at Milan’s Fashion Week.
The offense, for the most part, was efficient. Josh Jacobs found a new lease on life in his contract year and the connection between Adams and Carr was brewing, but key injuries to Hunter Renfrow and Darren Waller limited the ceiling.
And they just kept losing, falling to a 2-7 record after a deeply embarrassing and avoidable loss to the Indianapolis Colts, led by a head coach with a grand total of no college or NFL sideline experience in his first game in charge.
That was rock bottom. So there was reason to believe there was nowhere to go but up. For a while, there was a resurgence. The Raiders won three games on the bounce and moved to a record of 5-7, precariously close to believing in a late-season push for the postseason.
It wasn’t the dominant season that most expected, and the offense had stumbled its way through games – relying mostly on the rushing ability of Jacobs – but wins were wins. A currency the Raiders desperately needed to deal in.
The mini-resurgence left the Raiders with an outside chance of making the playoffs but they didn’t feel like a team worthy of the occasion and now sit with a 6-9 record, all but sealing their fate as another lost year. But this time is different, the repercussions feel real, as opposed to previous versions when the Raiders would just essentially shrug their shoulders, draft poorly, and try again next year.
The result of this season is the looming end of the Derek Carr era. After the news of his benching dropped, so too did the news that the former second-round pick would be stepping away from the team until the end of the season, so as to not cause distractions.
A noble gesture from Carr? In a way. The decision to bench Carr is a little different. The Raiders are doing so to protect their future investments. If Carr is injured between now and the end of the season, his 2023 salary ($32.9m) and $7.5m of his 2024 salary becomes guaranteed.
It’s not difficult to connect the dots. The Raiders are setting themselves up for a divorce from Carr in the offseason and shutting him down – despite still having a miniscule chance to make the postseason – almost ensures that that transaction goes off without a hitch.
Cutting or trading Carr saves the Raiders $25m in 2023 and leaves just a $5m dead cap hit. Seemingly good business for a team heading into a rebuild next season. Well, that’s the first domino. Moving on from Carr fully signals the end of an era in Vegas.
If the season were to end today, Vegas would select 9th overall at the 2023 NFL draft. But given who’s picking ahead of them (Houston, Carolina, and Indianapolis) there’s no guarantee that one of the draft’s top three QB’s will still be around.
While the Raiders would love to add CJ Stroud, Bryce Young or Will Levis to their roster, the number of QB needy teams could prevent that from happening.
For all intents and purposes, it seems as though once the season is wrapped up, the Raiders front office will likely be throwing the kitchen sink at teams selecting ahead of them in order to move up in the draft.
Whether that materializes or not remains to be seen, but it makes little sense to release/trade Carr, and NOT draft a quarterback in the spring. That is unless the franchise plans on going full blown tank mode for Caleb Williams in 2024, a move that would be unlikely to sit well with either the fanbase or their roster.
Whatever route they choose, expect Las Vegas to be amongst the busiest teams this offseason.
-Thomas Valentine
Twitter: @tvalentinesport
Photo: All-Pro Reels. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.