Derek Carr to step away from Raiders for remainder of season
from Pro Football Rumors with Sam Robinson, and from YardBarker.com/www.yardbarker.com
In a development that certainly points to the Raiders exploring a separation, Derek Carr will not be with the team to finish the regular season.
Carr will step away from the Raiders for their final two weeks of the season, Ian Rapoport of NFL.com tweets. Discussions between Carr and Raiders brass led to this outcome, per Rapoport, and the ninth-year passer will not attend practices or the team’s final two games.
Themed around preventing distractions, this latest Carr news would not be in stride with a team merely making a performance-based decision at quarterback. This will allow Carr to avoid answering questions about his Raiders status, and that status figures to come up often between now and the critical February window his new contract created.
The Raiders will start offseason pickup Jarrett Stidham for the final two games. Practice squad arm Chase Garbers will back up the former Patriots draft choice. Stidham has thrown 61 career passes — 13 as a Raider — and has never started a game. With the fourth-year passer not a likely candidate to vie for the 2023 starting job, this benching opens the door to a Carr trade or release.
Carr’s contract calls for a $40.4M payment due three days after Super Bowl LVII, giving the Raiders a chance to arrange a trade. A trade will be complicated by Carr’s no-trade clause and the prospect of a snafu scuttling a deal in the month between an agreed-upon swap and the start of the 2023 league year, the first date trades can become official. These issues did not stop Matthew Stafford-to-Los Angeles or Alex Smith-to-Washington trades, with each being agreed to in January. But a deal falling through would put the Raiders on the hook for the $40.5M guarantee.
A team that agrees to acquire Carr via trade would inherit a through-2025 contract that contains base salaries of $32.9M (2023), $41.9M (2024) and $41.2M (2025). Carr, 31, would be an upgrade for many teams, but the bonus does add a wrinkle here. The Colts-Falcons Matt Ryan swap this year only involved the Colts picking up a $7.5M roster bonus.
But Carr trade rumors — once an offseason fixture — may actually produce a deal next year. With head coach Josh McDaniels once rumored to be on the hot seat, moving on from a proven veteran at this rather important position runs the risk of the Raiders downgrading at QB for 2023. But options — like ex-McDaniels pupils Tom Brady and Jimmy Garoppolo, who will probably be linked to the Raiders in the coming weeks — do exist, as the 2020s have brought continued high-action QB offseasons.