Decision looming for Raiders on QB Derek Carr. ‘We’ve had a great relationship’

Las Vegas Raiders coach Josh McDaniels said Monday in an end-of-season news conference that talks with Derek Carr will begin soon.

The Raiders have until Feb. 15 to decide whether to keep, cut or trade Carr. If he remains on the roster after Feb. 15, his $42 million contract becomes guaranteed.

Raiders general manager Dave Ziegler and McDaniels have four weeks to figure it out.

“I think there’s going to be some time here that we need to go back through everything that we’ve done,” McDaniels said. “It’s going to start with him. We’re going to look at the games we’ve played, our performance at every position, and try to just look at it objectively now. We’re just looking at what we’ve done. At the end of the day, we’ll need to make some decisions about everything.”

Carr completed his ninth season with Raiders, although he missed the last two games because the team benched him to avoid any injuries that could lead the contract to become automatically guaranteed.

Carr reportedly told Ziegler and McDaniels that he will step away to avoid any distractions on the team.

It was a disappointing season for Carr, who finished among the top half of NFL quarterbacks in multiple passing categories but below the standards of his recent years.

The team also went 6-9 in his starts, all this despite the offseason addition of one of the NFL’s top receivers, Davante Adams, in a blockbuster trade.

Carr finished with 3,522 passing yards and 24 touchdowns against 14 interceptions. His completion percentage was 60.8%, the lowest he had since his rookie season in 2014 when he was at 58.1%..

Carr averaged above 68% from 2018-2021.

Recent odds by offshore betting sites suggest Carr’s time is over with the Raiders.

The decision what to do with Carr is the first thing that will get done before the other offseason dominoes start falling for the Raiders.

“It needs to be thorough, and it deserves time,” McDaniels said. “That’s what it deserves. There’s a lot that will go into that before we make any final proclamations or decisions. There’s a lot of people that are going to need to do some evaluating here, watch a lot of tape, have a lot of discussions that are hopefully very fruitful, and then when we’re ready to go we’ll move on.”

McDaniels said of Carr, “We’ve had a great relationship. He’s done a lot of great things and anything that’s said otherwise is incorrect. So, we’ll look forward to that, and like I said, there will be some time between now and then.”