The Raiders are in a race for the No. 1 pick in next year’s draft, but quarterback Derek Carr wants no part of it.
The Raiders, 49ers and Cardinals are all 2-8 with six games remaining. All Oakland has to do is lose all of its games – beginning this Sunday in Baltimore – and the No. 1 pick would belong to the "Silver and Black" (at least now, based on strength of schedule).
But Carr wants to win in Baltimore and in every game after that.
“I want to mess up the draft,” he told reporters Wednesday. “I don’t want the first pick. I want to win all these games. I want everybody to be mad at me for that. That’s what I want to accomplish.”
Carr already messed things up last week, when he led his team to a game-winning field-goal drive to beat the Cardinals in Arizona, 23-21. In that game, Carr was 19-of-31 for 192 yards and two touchdowns.
Carr got off to a rough start this season, throwing eight interceptions in his first five games. But over his past five games he has no interceptions vs. five touchdown passes. For the season, he’s 247-of-351 (70.4 percent) for 2,633 yards, 12 touchdowns and eight picks.
He’ll need to continue that trend if he wants the Raiders to come up with wins over the final six games against the Ravens, Chiefs (twice), Steelers, Bengals and Broncos. Carr wants the offense to continue making strides and working toward victories this year and next.
Sports
“For us as an offense, it’s really just building continuity,” he told Paul Gutierrez of ESPN.com. “We’ve got a lot of young guys playing. We’ve got a lot of new guys playing. I just think it’s cool what an opportunity we have here. Everyone sees what’s going on, what we’re having to deal with, but why not just go out and win some games?
“That would be so cool for this group to be able to hold on to.”
If the Raiders do lose out, however, obtaining the No. 1 overall pick would be a rarity for the franchise. Only once before since the AFL-NFL merger in 1970, in 2007, have the Raiders had the top pick. That year, they used it on QB JaMarcus Russell. That didn’t work out so well. After three seasons, Russell was out of the league.
The Raiders-Ravens game is set for kickoff Sunday at 10 a.m.
