It’s no secret that Derek Carr didn’t leave the Raiders in a good place with former head coach Josh McDaniels, and last week we learned one of the issues Carr had with McDaniels.
Carr didn’t mention McDaniels by name, but it seemed obvious who he was talking about, saying a coach told him to do one thing in a meeting and sent a different message in a game.
“The only time I got into it with a coach was that. [The coach] literally was like in the team meeting ‘You should have thrown this.’ I said ‘Hold on, bro.’ And that’s probably why I’m not there anymore,” Carr said on his Home Grown with David & Derek Carr podcast.
‘You said middle open, middle closed, it’s single high, I went middle closed and guess what. It’s not open. You’re telling me now I need to come over here?’ I did exactly what you told me to do.'”
Since leaving the Raiders, Carr has talked a few times about not having anything against McDaniels, but it’s hard to imagine he believes McDaniels was the best head coach for the team in his final two years with the team.
Carr talked about his departure from the Raiders in 2024
Appearing on the Two G’s in a Pod podcast in 2024, Carr shared parts of his last conversation with McDaniels as a member of the Raiders and disclosed the reason they gave for benching him at the end of the season…
“I sat there with a pretty dumbfounded face and I said ‘I didn’t think nine years of work would end like this’ and they both said ‘Well, no. We don’t want it to end.’ And I was like ‘No, I think we’re past that.’
I told Josh [McDaniels] when I was in there. I said ‘Thank you. I appreciate it, guys.’ I think a lot of things, but thank goodness I can keep them in sometimes. In that moment I [didn’t] want to hurt any relationships. I [didn’t] want to say something stupid. You never know what the future holds…“
Carr said he asked McDaniels and Ziegler why he was being benched and they said it was because they wanted to get a look at the other quarterbacks on the roster…
“I was like ‘Why?’ and they were like ‘Honestly, we want to see what these two guys can do so we know what we have going into next year. And I said ‘Hey, That’s your decision. Ok. Got it. I’m a grown man. I’m not going to sit here and try to talk you out of a decision you want to make.’
I have talked to Josh since then. I’ve texted him. They beat a team and I texted him and said ‘That’s awesome. Congrats. He texted me right back when we had a big game and so… I try my best to make every relationship alright and cool no matter what the situation is.”
Asked if he had any feelings of vindication when McDaniels and Ziegler were fired and Carr said he did not…
“I didn’t need to say anything. Things played out the way they played out and we only went 9-8. Yeah, we had a winning record, but we didn’t make the playoffs. So, at the end of the day, who am I to say anything?
My heart actually felt for [Josh] because I knew his kids and knew his family. I know what it’s like to get released… that crap sucks… So I felt for Dave and I felt for Josh because one-on-one when you’re with them, they’re not bad people. They’re trying their best. They’re doing their best to do what they think is right… and I get all that. It’s a business. I really didn’t have a feeling of ‘I told you’ or any of that kind of stuff.”
x: @raidersbeat