We have been told that Derek Carr left the Raiders on amicable terms and there were no hard feelings between him and the organization, but there’s no question that Josh McDaniels was sending a message when he gave the no. 4 jersey to rookie Aidan O’Connell.
No one was calling for Carr to have his number retired (the Raiders don’t do that anyway), but out of respect for the nine years he spent with the organization, most teams would have protected his jersey number for at least a year.
But that’s not what McDaniels decided to do.
O’Connell didn’t wear no. 4 in college and based on his comments in the preseason, we know that he didn’t ask to wear no. 4 with the Raiders.
“It was the number that was given to me,” O’Connell said in August. “I really don’t care what number I play with. I’ll play with any number. So, I don’t worry too much about that.”
McDaniels didn’t haphazardly assign the no. 4 jersey to O’Connell. If anything, he was known to overthink everything he did with the Raiders. He put thought into the number that O’Connell would wear this year.
Without question, McDaniels was sending a message by giving O’Connell the no. 4 jersey and it was a message that didn’t need to be sent. It didn’t accomplish anything. The Raiders locker room wasn’t against Carr and McDaniels wasn’t doing himself any favors by assigning Carr’s jersey to the next rookie quarterback in the building.
As we learned last week, the time may have been right to part ways with Carr, but it was a decision (especially considering the way it played out) that came with consequences for McDaniels in the locker room.
twitter: @raidersbeat
McDildo is a self centered egomaniac POS. He did it on purpose for sure. Carr of all people who never speaks ill of anyone. I said from the beginning what a horrible move it was to hire him. Davis set the team back another 3 years.
Lets see how they finish with Antonio and see if Mark learns his lesson. Id even be in favor of bringing back papa B to run special teams or asst head coach or something. Having 2 guys that the team will run through walls for would be great.
Who cares? Isn’t something else more sports related or relevant to the team? Neither one of them are with the team and I’m glad, I never liked Carr, and always hated Mcdoofus🩶🖤☠️🏴☠️💯
Of course not! Anyone who did that would have to be petty beyond measure, and have serious lack of character or integrity or…
…oh…
…wait…
Derek is to good of a person to say anything bad even though we all know he would love to..McDaniels was a crappy coach the first time and was no better this time he needs to run back to his daddy in New England ..Bill and Tom made his career..Its funny how he ran jacobs maybe 6 times in his last game as HC and they got killed again Pierce takes over and they give the ball to him 20 times a game and they win .How stupid could he be…Best thing to ever happen to Carr was to get out of a losing franchise to bad he didnt do it when sean payton was still the coach in New Orleans hed probably still be the coach if car had gone there 3 or 4 yrs ago
Look up “Petty” in the dictionary and you’ll find McDaniels’ photo. He’s the poster boy for the word.
Is this honestly what you guys get paid to write about? Pretending like NFL coaches and players are a bunch of sixth grade girls to stir up idiots? Why not write about something relevant? If anything this move indicated that McDaniels, who was a joke of a head coach, just didn’t really care about Carr or see him as significant. That was obvious from when he arrived. Suggesting he was going out of his way to be mean to Derek Carr, who probably really didn’t care if another Raider wore the number four, is a stupid click bait move. This is weak “journalism.”