Carr looked like 2016 self Monday — that could flip 2019 script
OAKLAND >> I honestly never thought we’d see him again.
But there he was in the Raiders’ 2019 season opener Monday night, in all of his splendor, with all of his swagger. It was 2016 Derek Carr. And boy was he fun to watch.
The Raiders’ quarterback looked every bit like his 2016 vintage — his almost-won-MVP self — in the Raiders’ 24-16 win over the Broncos at the Coliseum. Carr completed 22 of 26 passes for 259 yards and a touchdown, and allin-all looked in complete control at the line of scrimmage and in the pocket in his second year in Jon Gruden’s offense.
Yes, it was only one game — maybe it was just an early-season anomaly. Or perhaps the form starts to break down once to take some body blows — we’ve certainly seen that before.
But it was impossible to ignore that Carr was slinging it like a man who has already put the down payment on a house in Las Vegas. He connected on both the underneath throws that predicate Gruden’s death-by-100-hammer-blows offense and the downfield shots that only the best quarterbacks Gruden has coached have been able to execute. The dude threw
some absolute laser beams — the kind that only Brett Favre and Randall Cunningham have been able to execute for Gruden — on Monday.
He was crisp. He was confident. He looked comfortable.
If that is what we can expect from him in 2019, the Raiders’ offense has a chance to win Gruden some games and be a fun watch in the process.
And while I can’t say I think the Raiders will be a winning team this season — their defense leaves much to be desired and their schedule is a bear — executing well and being entertaining, at least on one side of the ball, has to be worth something these days. (Especially for a team that’s leaving town and entered the campaign on a note that justly soured expectations.)
Carr might not be able to throw the ball to Antonio Brown this season, as was once expected, but he has much-improved offensive weapons around him this year, and he made that evident against Denver.
He built a quick and fruitful rapport with his now-No. 1 receiver, Tyrell Williams, (seven targets, six catches, 105 yards, a touchdown) and top tight end Darren Waller (eight targets, seven catches, 70 yards) Monday, and that, paired with a run game that packed a serious punch, highlighted by sensational rookie back Josh Jacobs (23 rushing attempts, 85 yards, two touchdowns; one 28-yard catch), made the Raiders’ balanced offense purr.
But the best argument for this kind of offensive play continuing into Week 2 and beyond is the fact that Carr worked with a clean pocket all game against one of best defenses in the NFL and one of the scariest edge-rusher duos in years.
If you watched Monday night’s game live, you probably have no idea that the indomitable Von Miller and his precocious understudy Bradley Chubb actually played. They were swallowed whole by Raiders’ tackles Trent Brown and Kolton Miller.
Carr wasn’t hit once in the game. Yes, you read that right — zip, nada, zero hits on No. 4 Monday.
Brown did exactly what the Raiders paid him the big bucks this past spring to provide. Miller — one of the best pass rushers to ever do it — couldn’t climb or circumvent the mountain that is the 6-foot-8, 360-(plus)-pound right tackle.
It was Miller’s performance that was most eyeopening, though. The firstround pick was likely a reach in the 2018 NFL Draft and didn’t do much to avoid a “bust” label after just one season. Pro Football Focus graded him as the worst tackle in the NFL last year.
But he bulked up to 330 pounds this past offseason — a necessity — without losing much, if any, of his enviable athleticism. Add in the further refinement in his technique — something he showed snap after snap against Chubb Monday — and he could be en route to a breakout season.
He certainly looked good when he broke out and won the game for the Raiders Monday night.
Up eight points with two minutes to play in the fourth quarter and facing a must-convert thirdand-8 from their own 27 yard line, the Raiders — noticing the slack Williams’ mark was giving him on the outside — called a screen pass that demanded Miller to get out to the numbers, crush the cornerback, and create a lane for Williams to run for the first down.
Miller executed the play to perfection — one push from the UCLA product moved Issac Yiadom back five yards — and Williams got past the sticks with ease. The Raiders subsequently ran out of the clock to seal the win.
It wasn’t just the tackles, though — the Raiders’ offensive line, as a five-man unit, manhandled Denver on the line of scrimmage, establishing a tone of dominance early in the game and keeping it up for 60 minutes.
It was the kind of offensive line play that Carr received in that magical 2016 season, when he was sacked on a league-best 2.8 percent of his dropbacks, 16 times total. It was the kind of protection that he could have only dreamed about last year, when he was sacked 51 times and hit countless times more.
There was plenty of reason to be skeptical about this offensive line heading into the game — the were starting reserves at both guard spots and the infamous Tom Cable is their position coach. One game won’t fully wipe that away — no matter how good it was.
There’s reason to be skeptical of Carr, too. The questions he must answer in this, a make-orbreak year, aren’t if he has the ability to be one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL, but rather if he can sustain that kind of play throughout an entire season.
But if Monday’s form is, indeed, a sign of things to come — if the offensive weapons stay on the field, the o-line remains dominant, and Carr’s understanding of Gruden’s offense in year two has, indeed, overwritten his indecision and jitters in the pocket, allowing his elite talent to take over — then the Raiders quarterback is going to make his, and perhaps the Raiders’, last season in Oakland one to remember.