Until the draft is over and Derek Carr is still the Raiders quarterback there won’t be anyone silencing the rumors around Carr’s status with the team.
Carr’s supporters often point to his supporting cast of receivers to explain why he wasn’t better this year and his skeptics tend to bring up the way Carson Wentz carried the Eagles to the playoffs this year with a depleted receiver group. Essentially making the case that bad receivers aren’t an excuse for lower expectations from a quarterback.
At face value it seems like a logical comparison until you factor in that Wentz made it to the playoffs with a 9-7 record and the Raiders weren’t that far behind at 7-9 (and probably 9-7 with competent officiating). Furthermore, the Eagles played six games this year against teams drafting in the top five of the 2020 draft. As stats are concerned, 14 of Wentz’s 27 touchdown passes this year came in those six games against the NFL’s worst teams.
By all accounts Wentz played well through adversity, but to discredit Carr because of Wentz’s playoff run might be ignoring too many other details – like the fact that the Raiders could have beaten Jacksonville and Denver and still would have missed the playoffs with a 9-7 record.
If the receiver-less Eagles beat the Seahawks on Sunday, then maybe there is a reasonable case to be made… but really the only conclusion in that case would be that Wentz had a better year than Carr, which isn’t that profound of a statement because Wentz is a good quarterback.
twitter: @raidersbeat
