The Las Vegas Raiders are apparently moving on from a quarterback, but it’s not Derek Carr.
Last offseason saw a flurry of rumors and speculation surrounding Carr and what Las Vegas was going to do regarding their quarterback situation. Everything from Tom Brady joining the Silver and Black to the team drafting a quarterback dominated headlines. It appeared 2021 was going to be the same after proposed trade scenarios have gone viral on social media.
Nevertheless, it appears Jon Gruden and the Raiders’ brain trust might be parting ways with Marcus Mariota and not Carr. Considering that the Raiders need to clean up their roster due to so many bloated contracts, shipping off Mariota is a smart bet. In an offseason where the team needs to devote as much money as they can to their defense, keeping two quarterbacks on their roster doesn’t make much sense.
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Unlikely The Raiders Trade Carr At This Point
The Athletic reported at least one NFL general manager said it’s the Raiders’ preference to roll with Carr in 2021. This is barring a ridiculous offer for ‘4’, so saving Mariota’s $10.7 million cap hit appears to benefit the team’s goals. With so many roster deficiencies, keeping an expensive backup quarterback is a commodity the Raiders can’t afford this season.
As far as any potential Carr trade, Gruden’s brother, Jay, the former coach of the Washington Football Team, weighed in via The Athletic. “I never know what Jon’s gonna do. But I’d be shocked, really. The way that Derek played this year, I don’t know why he’d want to get rid of him.”
Jay’s thoughts seem to be the most logical way of seeing things as far as Carr. He’s been improving every year under ‘Chucky’ and had one of his most efficient years in 2020. All signs are pointing to Mariota being the odd man out unless the Raiders get such a lucrative offer for Carr they can’t pass up, however unlikely that may be.
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*Top Photo: Ron Chenoy-USA TODAY Sports
If the Raiders can pull a first and a second or third for Carr AND their preferred QBOTF falls to them. Either someone ahead of them wants to be in win-now mode and swaps Carr for their first plus more, or they pull the trigger and draft their QBOTF (for example if Lance falls to them and Gruden decides he’s the QBOTF). But I really don’t see it happening.
First of all, Carr is a top 10 NFL QB and is on an attractive salary for someone at his level. The odds of drafting someone who ultimately ends up as good as Carr is not high. Of course, it does take $20 mill off the Raiders salary cap, and the Raiders have Mariota as the fill-in for a year, so nets the Raiders an additional $10 million off the salary cap versus just getting rid of Mariota. But if the Raiders want to cut cap, they already have Williams coming off (~10m), Brown the fat right tackle (~20m), Incognito (~6m – I think), and Collins is gone (~6m). So there’s $42 million versus last year without breaking a sweat, so the Raiders have plenty of cap space, potentially.