New Oakland Raiders general manager Mike Mayock knows that his team has plenty of issues. But he doesn’t think Derek Carr is one of them.
Vic Tafur of The Athletic cited Mayock defending Carr. The GM noted, in particular, the dearth of quality quarterbacks around the league.
Mayock: “There aren’t 32 starting quarterbacks in the NFL, and we have one of them. Derek Carr is the least of our problems.” #Raiders
— Vic Tafur (@VicTafur) January 25, 2019
Carr is coming off of a season in which he completed 68.9 percent of his passes for 4,049 yards with 19 touchdowns, 10 interceptions and a 93.9 rating. We’d like to see a better TD/INT ratio. But with that understood, Mayock isn’t exactly wrong.
The Raiders have very little going for them in a positive direction. Jared Cook is coming off of a Pro Bowl season. But he’s a pending free agent. Aside from him, Carr’s potential targets leave a lot to be desired. On the other side of the ball, the Oakland defense struggled in 2017 with Khalil Mack. With him gone in 2018, the defense was an atrocity.
Carr has some room to improve. Long term, he may not be the guy for the Raiders. But as Mayock is trying to improve the roster, finding a replacement for Carr has to be low on the priority list.