Derek Carr outlasted Jon Gruden and got $121 million as his reward
After nearly three years as Jon Gruden’s unwanted stepchild, Derek Carr suddenly had all the leverage. Carr was an afterthought in Las Vegas, an inherited quarterback forced to play second fiddle to a high-profile head coach who liked the Raiders’ franchise — and the $100 million contract it gave him — much more than the Raiders’ roster.
Carr didn’t suffer the ignominy of being shipped away a season after being the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year like Khalil Mack. Instead, he mostly suffered in silence as his head coach, empowered to make personnel decisions, brought in quarterbacks like Marcus Mariota and Nathan Peterman as unofficial statements about the team’s future. Mariota, a man run out of Nashville despite an offense that made Ryan Tannehill one of the league’s most efficient passers, signed a deal that made him the league’s highest-paid backup quarterback in 2020. Peterman, a man who is Nathan Peterman, signed a contract with an NFL team that wasn’t an elaborate Impractical Jokers bit.
By extension, Carr was replaceable despite the fact he was only in his late 20s, was a former viable MVP candidate (2016), and was the engine behind the franchise’s lone playoff appearance since 2002. If not for his affordable $25 million salary, he may have been dismissed wholesale during the Vegas makeover that put Gruden at the center of the team’s solar system.
But Gruden was unsuccessful as a roster builder and untenable as a head coach. When emails with derogatory language surfaced in leaks from the league’s investigation into the Washington Commanders — an investigation whose full effects have just begun to be felt — Gruden’s resignation left Carr as the brightest star in the Raiders’ constellation.
And Carr burned bright in 2021. Sort of. Despite a depleted receiving corps and the league’s 28th-ranked rushing offense, he led Las Vegas back to the postseason for the first time since that 2016 campaign. His 282 passing yards per game were a full 20 yards better than his previous career high.
After spending 2018 and 2019 as a low-impact caretaker QB — his 6.7 air yards per pass were third-lowest among all starting quarterbacks in that stretch — he regained his confidence downfield. 208 of his 626 passes traveled at least 10 yards beyond the line of scrimmage last season (33.2 percent). In 2019, his first year under Gruden, that number was only 126 of 517 (24.4 percent).
In a market where it’s easier than ever to acquire a veteran franchise quarterback — the Raiders watched the Broncos pull it off by liberating Russell Wilson from Seattle — Las Vegas bought in on its homegrown product. On Wednesday, reports broke that Carr had become only the seventh player in NFL history to average more than $40 million in annual salary.
That’s a lot of money for a guy who ranked 14th in both passer rating and QBR last fall. He’s slated to make more money per year than Wilson, Matthew Stafford, and Dak Prescott. All three of those guys have won playoff games; Carr has not.
But you can’t examine this three-year, $121.5 million extension in a vacuum. Carr is finally getting the validation his franchise refused to give him the last three seasons. He had to crawl through a sewer just to get to this open field. And without him, Las Vegas likely wouldn’t land Davante Adams in a trade with the Packers, reuniting the two former Fresno State stars in the Pacific Time Zone.
Once the ink dried on the Adams deal, the logical next step was to extend the quarterback set to hit free agency in 2023. In a true departure from the Gruden era, the Raiders did the logical thing, expensive as it was.
Carr still has plenty to prove. This will be, barring injury, the best offense he’s ever worked with. He’ll have a big three of Adams, Darren Waller, and Hunter Renfrow to expand his playbook. He’ll have the confidence of knowing he could throw passes to guys like Zay Jones, Keelan Doss, and Tyrell Williams and still complete more than two-thirds of his attempts. His foundation has never been stronger; now he just needs to build a playoff team on top of it.
That won’t be easy, but the Raiders’ QB1 has more working in his favor now than at any point in his career. If living well is the best revenge, Carr just got more than $121 million to throw passes to his old college buddy, who happens to be one of the best wide receivers in the universe. He has job security, a potent lineup of pass catchers, and a new head coach in Josh McDaniels who has proven capable of pushing his quarterbacks to success.
Life is good if you’re Derek Carr. But if he can’t get it done with all the tools Las Vegas has put at his disposal, well, he’s going to make Jon Gruden look a lot smarter than his Raiders’ record suggests.