The Oakland Raiders boasted one of the best offenses in football last season, led by quarterback Derek Carr who has developed into an MVP caliber quarterback.
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2016’s offensive success did not stop Raiders general manager Reggie McKenzie from making upgrades on that side of the ball this offseason though, as the Raiders brought in three veterans, running back Marshawn Lynch, wide receiver Cordarrelle Patterson and tight end Jared Cook.
The new offensive players are beginning to get acquainted with Carr and the rest of the offense at OTA’s, which are currently taking place in Oakland.
Cook, who spent last season with the Green Bay Packers, talked about what it has been like to play with Carr is practice, via Kyle Martin of Raiders.com:
“It’s [been] awesome, man,” said Cook, describing what it’s been like to work with Carr so far. “[He’s a] great quarterback, great skills, great leader, excited to be in the huddle with him. Very communicative. Tells you exactly how he wants routes, tells you how he wants to run them and talks to you if something goes AWOL a little bit.”
Carr, who is also a fan of Cook’s, believes that he will help out the entire offense due to the attention the defense will have to pay to him:
“With a guy like Jared that can stretch the field vertically like that, it’s going to lead to more single coverage outside for ‘Coop’ [Amari Cooper] and ‘Crab’ [Michael Crabtree],” Carr said. “It’s going to lead to more one-on-ones for Seth [Roberts]. The possibilities are endless when you add a guy at that position that has that much speed vertically. The things you can do with him really put a lot of stress on the defense.”
With still about 100 days until the beginning of the regular season, Carr, Cook and the rest of the offense still have plenty of time to continue to build chemistry and create an offense that was even better than 2016.
