I Think Sometimes We Focus on the Wrong Things (My Thoughts on Derek Carr Catching Backlash for Not Being in the City)
That whole narrative of "Carr got Dennis Allen fired twice" is such a forking joke too. Allen had already been the Raiders coach for 2 years when Carr was drafted. He already had a terrible record before Carr got there.
Carr was drafted in the 2nd Round, and they had just signed Matt Schaub (memba him?) to a HUGE free agency deal. (Edit: Schaub was acquired via trade, not signed) Carr wasn't even supposed to play. Schaub was supposed to be their starter going forward, but he played like absolute dogshirt in preseason, and Carr outplayed him by a mile. Carr was the starter in Week 1 of his rookie year, thrown into the fire immediately on a bad team.
They lost something like 7-8 games straight to start the season before Allen was fired, but he was 4-12 the previous season, and 4-12 again the season before that. Needless to say that's a pretty sheetty record. Allen was already on VERY thin ice and should have already been fired before Carr even got drafted.
But hey, whatever narrative some people want to spin to blame Carr for something else.
It’s kind of interesting and frustrating to me that it is so hard for some folks to fathom the idea that it’s possible for a QB to be good, above average but somehow end up stuck on bad teams all the time.
It’s like we all acknowledge that the Raiders are one of the most dysfunctional teams in pro sports, consistently hires bad head coaches and makes poor personnel decisions, had never had a good defense while he was there, acknowledge that Dennis Allen was one of the worst HCs of all-time while here and also was the HC to start Carr’s career, that our injury situation was incredibly, historically awful here, that Pete Carmichael had no idea what he was doing as his OC…but hey, that Derek Carr guy should overcome all of this and win some games already!
He’s had an anomaly career. Teams aren’t just starting him for the sake of it or based on merely reputation…the guy can play.
He’s just not the type of QB that you can stick on a bad team with just anyone at WR and expect him to elevate their games like Drew did at times. Heck, as Saints fans, we saw what happened even if you stick a DREW BREES on bad teams with bad defenses…he doesn’t win nearly as much. The fact that we had so many 7-9 seasons with Drew friggin’ Brees in his prime at QB, which is downright pathetic on the part of Sean Payton and a lowkey fireable offense that he was lucky to survive, tells you how easily things like this can happen.
This is what Carr was working with in Oakland/Vegas, but hey, it’s all his fault that they never won a playoff game amirite?
That whole narrative of "Carr got Dennis Allen fired twice" is such a forking joke too. Allen had already been the Raiders coach for 2 years when Carr was drafted. He already had a terrible record before Carr got there.
Carr was drafted in the 2nd Round, and they had just signed Matt Schaub (memba him?) to a HUGE free agency deal. (Edit: Schaub was acquired via trade, not signed) Carr wasn't even supposed to play. Schaub was supposed to be their starter going forward, but he played like absolute dogshirt in preseason, and Carr outplayed him by a mile. Carr was the starter in Week 1 of his rookie year, thrown into the fire immediately on a bad team.
They lost something like 7-8 games straight to start the season before Allen was fired, but he was 4-12 the previous season, and 4-12 again the season before that. Needless to say that's a pretty sheetty record. Allen was already on VERY thin ice and should have already been fired before Carr even got drafted.
But hey, whatever narrative some people want to spin to blame Carr for something else.