Going into the 2017 season, quarterback Derek Carr was the primary reason the Raiders believed they could be a Super Bowl team.
In 2016, Carr played like an MVP candidate. He was young, he produced multiple comeback victories in his first NFL seasons and he had a great touchdown-to-turnover ratio.
But when Carr struggled this past season, so did the Raiders. His inability to play to the level he showed in 2016 was one of a number of reasons the Raiders went from 12-4 to 6-10.
But now that the season is over and head coach Jack Del Rio has been fired, reports now are leaking to the media that Carr and his teammates were operating in an environment some have labeled “toxic.”
Michael Gehlken of the Las Vegas Review-Journal reported many Raiders players said the atmosphere on the team grew dark by the end of the season.
“Players would offer a headshake about specific happenings, which they discussed only in generalities,” Gehlken wrote. “One said in late December it’d take ‘a few beers’ to adequately capture the circumstances.”
And, Raiders broadcaster Greg Papa reported this week on his radio show that after Carr had a poor game in a loss to the Kansas City Chiefs late in the season, the quarterback was criticized openly by coaches in front of his teammates.
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“The coaching staff turned on Derek Carr as well,” Papa reported. “After the Kansas City game they called him out in front of a whole team meeting. It wasn’t just the offense or the quarterbacks (or) a segment of the team. It was the whole team. And they ripped him in front of everybody and Derek’s a prideful guy.”
If that’s the case, and owner Mark Davis learned of the growing rifts, it’s no wonder he made the move to change head coaches. Carr is at the center of the Raiders’ future hopes. Tearing him down seems counterproductive.
Plus, No. 1 candidate to replace Del Rio, Jon Gruden, has always been a Carr fan. According to Albert Breer of Sports Illustrated’s Monday Morning Quarterback, Gruden advised the Raiders to draft Carr in 2014. And, Mark Davis believed that by getting Carr, the Raiders might eventually be able to lure Gruden back to coaching the Raiders, Breer reports.
That could be good news for Carr in 2018.
