There is a pressing dilemma facing the Raiders this offseason. Roll with Derek Carr or roll the dice and move on from him. The fans seem to be split on this decision. Not everyone for the same reason. My take is that there is only one wrong answer: to play it safe.
Let me explain this in the best way I can; through movies.
Probably the greatest film ever made was Shawshank Redemption (fight me). And the most famous line from that film was when Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) tells his friend Red (Morgan Freeman) that it comes down to a simple choice; “get busy livin’ or get busy dyin’.”
This line naturally came across as pretty ominous to Red. Then came the morning when the inmates stepped outside their cells for roll call and Andy was not there, instantly Red’s worry was that Andy had decided to ‘get busy dyin.’
Red soon found out, after the warden ripped down a poster off the wall of Andy’s cell, that his friend Andy had other plans in mind.
Seeing as Shawshank is the second most televised film of all time (behind Mrs. Doubtfire), most of you are probably pretty familiar with the film. If not **SPOILER ALERT** Andy escaped from the prison. He broke open a sewer line and “crawled through a river of shit and came out clean on the other side.”
The lesson here is Andy was decisive. He didn’t play it safe. He took action to ‘get busy livin’. All he would’ve needed to do in order to ‘get busy dyin’ was to do nothing.
No great story was ever told by people playing it safe. Being great and overcoming the odds takes courage in your convictions.
Whatever Jon Gruden decides to do with Derek Carr, he must make that decision for the right reason. That reason can’t be because ‘Well…I guess there’s no better option so…” No. You make this decision based on whether you think Derek Carr is the guy who can lead you to the promised land. If he isn’t, you move on. Period.
You do NOT keep Carr for fear that whomever you replace him with might also not be the answer.
Need proof that is the wrong approach? Let me tell you a story about another Andy who took a chance and ‘got busy livin’.’ One who happens to be an old friend of Gruden — Andy Reid.
A couple years ago, Andy Reid had it nice and safe with Alex Smith as his QB. The Chiefs made the playoffs four out of five years Smith was the starter. And they got one playoff win out of it. Reid wanted more. He didn’t want safe. He wanted a championship. And he knew Alex Smith wasn’t the guy to get it for him. So, he traded up in the draft to get Patrick Mahomes. A year later, Mahomes was MVP and a year after that, Reid had his Lombardi.
I hate to keep ragging on Alex Smith, but the same thing happened in San Francisco. They benched him – their former number one overall pick — in favor of second-year guy Colin Kaepernick and immediately went to the Super Bowl. Then they traded Smith for a second-round pick. The Chiefs later got a third-round pick and Kendall Fuller for Smith.
Keep in mind that Smith went his final 8 seasons without posting a losing record. He is the definition of a safe move. Carr has had one winning season in his six-year career.
Yes, yes, wins are not a QB stat. And I am not putting all those losses on him. What I am asking is, what safety are the Raiders getting? What exactly is there to be so afraid of? Dropping further below mediocrity?
In the end, if Gruden legitimately thinks Carr is the QB to run his offense to its full capacity and make this team into a Super Bowl contender, keep him. If he does not, then you trade him. Because if you keep him merely for fear of a lack of a better immediate option, and the Raiders end up back to hovering around .500 after next season, all you’ve done is put yourself back in the same situation, only this time with Carr holding less trade value and just one mid-first round pick instead of two.
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