By nearly every statistical measure, Derek Carr is playing the best football of his career with the Raiders.
He’s on pace to set career highs across the board and is playing winning football. Carr’s performed well on the road, defeating teams like the Chiefs and Browns in the first half of the season. However, not everyone is buying the Carr improvement in 2020.
In a recent article by Mike Sando of The Athletic, he revisited his quarterback tiers piece from earlier this offseason. In that initial piece, NFL coaches and decision-makers ranked Carr as the 20th-best quarterback in the NFL. But despite his fantastic play, many around the NFL aren’t sold on Carr.
Here is one quote from the Sando piece from a defensive coach who has played against Carr this season:
“The thing I got from playing against him was, he is in year three of (Jon) Gruden’s offense, so you can see him operate. Dak Prescott made a similar jump. He showed he can solve things at the line of scrimmage, getting them in the right plays. I feel like Carr is doing the same thing, but if you can get to Carr, he’s not the same guy.”
While this is just the opinion of one coach, several other decision-makers in the piece had similar thoughts about Carr.
In order for Carr to shake this narrative that he is only an average quarterback, he’s going to need to have a similar second half to the 2020 season and he’s going to need to lead his team to the playoffs. If the Raiders can get into the tournament and Carr can play well, maybe he can start to change the minds of people around the league.
Carr is playing at a level that we have never seen before. He’s going to need to continue to improve and win in order to finally gain the respect that he deserves. Expect Carr and the Raiders to continue to surprise everyone in the second half of this season.
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