Lincoln Kennedy was recently promoted to color commentator to call Raider games alongside Brent Musburger and on Friday he was a guest on CBS Sports Radio with Tiki Barber and Brandon Tierney.
Linc talked about replacing Greg Papa, Khalil Mack’s holdout, and all things Jon Gruden, but most notably he shared on how things would be different this year for Derek Carr in the new offense.
“What Derek’s going to look forward to in this year’s offense is he’s going to have options to get rid of the football,” Kennedy said. “He’s not going to have to hold on to the ball that often. Last year, with the offensive play calling that was down there, he was very limited in what he could do… this is not going to be the case with [Gruden’s] offense.”
Kennedy is just the latest to talk about the way Gruden plans to give Carr more control over the offense. Gruden has said he wants to “empower” Carr to get the Raiders into the right plays and even offered a comparison to the way Peyton Manning used to manage plays at the line of scrimmage.
This was Gruden’s quote in May about Carr, Manning and the return of a no-huddle offense:
“When Derek was at Fresno State, he called his own plays a lot of the time at the line of scrimmage in a no-huddle offense so he’s very good at recognizing coverages, recognizing blitzes. We’ve been working extremely hard at empowering him to play a little bit like Peyton Manning played. Get us into the best run possible, get us into the best pass play possible. But with the coach to quarterback communication, we can help him from the sidelines and from the press box. We’re going to let him have the green light to take advantage of what he sees and at the same time, we’re going to help him whenever we can. Don’t be surprised if you see us in the no-huddle offense a little more than you’ve seen in the past.”
By all accounts, Carr is already well ahead of the curve in learning Gruden’s offense – so much that Gruden has joked about Carr knowing the offense even better than himself.
Derek Carr in real command of Jon Gruden’s offense. Vocal before snap. At line of scrimmage, directing traffic to degree he hasn’t in past. Never a question whether he’d buy in. But work they’ve put in evident on practice field. His fluency level exceeds their time together.
— Michael Gehlken (@GehlkenNFL) August 14, 2018
What was strange about last year’s disaster was that Carr was supposed to have more control over the offense when Todd Downing replaced Bill Musgrave. Instead, it looked like no one had control over the offense at all.
Either way, it’s noteworthy that Kennedy said Carr was “limited” by the game plan a year ago. It would be interesting to learn a little more about that.
twitter: @raidersbeat
He was limited by injury as well—he seemed very tentative at times. I expect this year to be a great deal better, but let’s hope he stays healthy. Or trade two for one and get Teddy Bridgewater. Backups disastrous.
Anyone else shake their head at Del Rio for firing Bill Musgrave with the offense ranked 6th in the league and the defense was a total joke?
Downing was in WAY over his head and had no idea how to build a game plan. Musgrave may have been a bit too conservative, especially late in games we were trailing, but he could game plan with the best of them. Downing thought it would be easy and got embarrassed…….and fired!