For the past nine seasons, the Las Vegas Raiders went into the season with Derek Carr as the team’s starting quarterback. There were some good times and some rough ones, but Carr unquestionably gave everything he had to the Raiders franchise.
Now the team has chosen to move on from Carr with Jimmy Garoppolo taking over as the Raiders’ starting quarterback. Team owner Mark Davis is committed to winning and bringing this franchise back to greatness, but the fact that he was unable to do that with Carr bothers him.
Davis recently sat down with Tashan Reed of The Athletic and took ownership of the Raiders struggles, admitting that he even apologized to Carr for his failures to win:
“You know, it’s interesting with Derek. If you look at the last two head coaches that I hired, they’re offensive geniuses. And that was, again, with the understanding that we had Derek Carr as the quarterback and that Derek could only benefit from knowledge from the two of them. So, having offensive coaches was really important to me in that regard. I tried to give them all the tools. As I told Derek, the only consistent thing with the Raiders for the last 11 years has been me. And the fact that we haven’t won falls on me. There’s no passing the buck or pointing the fingers: The buck stops here. And I apologized to him for not being able to get it done. That’s how I feel.”
Davis is right in that he is the one constant for the Raiders franchise for the past decade and him taking that responsibility says a lot about his desire to win. As he noted, the Raiders’ last two coaching hires were offensive minds intended to help Carr, but the lack of consistency also hurt the quarterback as he went through six coaches in his nine years with the team.
Even still, Carr is far and away the Raiders’ all-time leader in completions, passing yards, and passing touchdowns and despite the way things ended between the two sides, Carr insists he harbors no ill feelings towards Raiders coach Josh McDaniels or GM Dave Ziegler.
Carr was very open about his desire to win with the Raiders and he and Davis shared that passion and desire. Unfortunately, they were unable to accomplish that goal together and now each will look to do it separately as Carr begins his next chapter with the New Orleans Saints.
