What Went Wrong with the Las Vegas Raiders & Derek Carr?

The Las Vegas Raiders and Derek Carr's nine-year relationship is over, and we take you inside to find out what went wrong.

HENDERSON, Nev.--As with any divorce, there are always two sides to what went wrong, and usually, the truth is somewhere in the middle.

In doing my due diligence for this article, I spoke to multiple sources from the Las Vegas Raiders and others who gave me superb information about Derek Carr throughout my three years covering him and this team. I talked to numerous players about the situation and others who would lend credibility to the situation. Here is what I have learned.

After you read this, my goal is not to be happy for one side or the other, but my goal is to tell you the truth, so you can learn how complicated this last season was and why this divorce is better for Derek Carr and the Las Vegas Raiders.

• The 2021 campaign was the most difficult of Derek Carr's nine years wearing the Silver and Black.
• You might second-guess that and wonder if 2022 was, but you would be wrong.
• I can tell you that there would never be a 2022 season like the one that the Raiders had if there hadn't been 2021 like the Raiders experienced.
• When Coach Jon Gruden took over the Raiders, he was unsure of Derek Carr. In fairness to Gruden, Mark Davis, one of his best friends, likes Carr. But Davis wasn't sold on his signal-caller as a viable long-term answer.
• Davis, true to his strength, trusted his football people, and Gruden wanted to see for himself.
• Gruden liked a lot of things about Carr.
• While Gruden could be coarse and hard, Carr took it. Gruden could be grueling in his office with Carr, but the pride of Fresno State never wavered.
• One NFL team official who is very close to Gruden told me that Gruden told him after year one: "That kid (Carr) is the real deal."
• They said: "After year one with Carr and Gruden, Jon had some concerns, but he never looked back after that. He loved Carr, and Carr loved him."
• While Gruden didn't hold back, he did much of it privately with his quarterback.
• When the story of Jon Gruden's emails hit the news and Gruden was removed, Carr was hurt. It hurt for many reasons.
• The emails that came out were not the Jon Gruden that Carr was fond of.
• Carr also lost something he craved, someone in the organization that believed in him. Carr craved stability.
• Throughout Carr's career, he had been the face that publicly picked the franchise up and put it on his shoulders in many ways.
• While the average fan will have no idea, Carr spent significant time over his years calming players and dealing with what some saw as the organization's dysfunction.
• Carr had taken less money to sign an extension with assurances that his friend Khalil Mack would return, only to see Mack shipped out of town eventually.
• Fair or not, one teammate told me: "I felt bad for Derek. He gave and gave, and right or wrong it appeared that (the Raiders) just expected him to cash his paycheck and shut up."
• No one is painting Carr as a martyr, but he had his role and fulfilled it faithfully.
• Carr was not only the starting quarterback, but also the one who worked essentially as the team counselor. He would take guys under his wing, invite them to his home for Bible study and try to comfort them when times were troubling.
• One player said: "I think what Jon and Derek had going was magical. Derek was the guy everyone looked to."
• Another player told me: "I remember learning that Mark Davis wasn't a big Carr guy. I was told that Gruden made that clear to Derek, and I always felt like that stung Derek."
• The player said: "When Jon was out, I think Derek felt unprotected."
• When Rich Bisaccia was named interim coach, everyone in the Raiders locker room and organization was excited. Well, nearly everyone.
• "I felt like we got our guy now. Rich was a lot like Jon; he would call you out and hold you accountable, but it was different. With Gru (Gruden), you played for him. There was never a doubt he was the boss, and he could say things that stung and walk away laughing," one organization member said.
• They added, "With Rich you played with him. I know he wasn't on the field, but if he trusted you, you had a voice."
• One of Derek's closest friends on the team, a player that Derek has declared, as one of his closest friends told me: "He (Carr) loved Jon. But I don't think he ever had a coach he enjoyed playing for more than Rich."
• I previously reported and broke the story that Josh McDaniels was a candidate for the Raiders head coaching job.
• I also reported and broke the story that McDaniels had reached out to Derek Carr before taking the job, something that Josh McDaniels has acknowledged publicly.
• McDaniels had always liked Carr, the player. He didn't know him as a person yet.
• Again, in previous years I had reported that New England was one of the teams reaching out to the Raiders to see if Derek Carr was available when rumors swirled of Gruden's frustration with Carr.
• As I reported, the rumors of Gruden's frustration were false, but the Patriots desperately needed a quarterback, and they liked Carr.
• McDaniels spoke with Carr. They discussed philosophy and the system. McDaniels was frank with Carr that he wanted to not just come to Las Vegas, he wanted to coach him.
• Carr was still hurting, as were his teammates, but he was excited. With the excitement that McDaniels had proclaimed, he felt he was possibly getting another coach in his corner. He was.
• Many in the locker room felt like Davis, who leads an organization that talks so much about the value of the players, had wholly ignored those wishes and subsequently fired Bisaccia. That hurt his team.
• Carr took the call from McDaniels and was encouraged. He was exhilarated with how McDaniels explained his system, and both shared a desperate passion for a Super Bowl title.
• After that phone call, McDaniels told one colleague: "He's (Carr) hungry to win."

• According to that colleague: "Josh and (General Manager) Dave (Ziegler) were fired up."
• McDaniels took the job, and things began to escalate.
• Carr quickly grew fond of Dave Ziegler.
• One person close to Carr told me: "Derek loved Dave. They hit it off. Dave was very honest about the deal they wanted to draw up, and Derek and his team were honest what they were looking for."
• One NFL executive told me: "There is no way, not in f***ing hell the Raiders give Carr the deal that they did if they saw this coming. Not only does Carr's contract have the February decision date, but the no-trade. That deal made no sense if you aren't sold on the guy."
• They were.

• I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that Josh McDaniels, and Dave Ziegler were sold on Carr.
• McDaniels shared with his friends around the league how excited he was to coach Carr.
• When the Davante Adams deal looked dead at one point, Carr revived it. It was Carr who helped get it going again.
• McDaniels and Ziegler raved to people about how instrumental Carr was and how much they appreciated the relationship.
• There was a sense of unity between Carr, Ziegler, and McDaniels.
• But as one person from the organization told me: "That didn't mean that Derek felt loved by Mark Davis."  
• But once the team arrived for training camp, some things changed.
• McDaniels had done everything he said he would, and so had Carr. McDaniels saw many things he liked in Carr, and Carr liked McDaniels' rings, but there were cracks in the relationship even then.
• One of the team's players told me: "I had never heard Derek spoken to like Josh did. He didn't drop F-bombs, or ridicule him, but film sessions with Josh are brutal."
• They said: "While many of the players were maybe tired with the length of the McDaniels' film reviews, I think we all loved that he was consistent."
• While Carr was no stranger to criticism from a coach, often time according to one member of the organization: "He has never had his mail read in front of the entire team like that."
• In addition, they said: "Josh calls everyone out. It is why everyone talks about him being consistent. He would call out coaches, players, I mean hell, he even called out the people that bring water out on a timeout for not getting it out there quick enough."
• As one person said: "The Patriot way of mindlessly going over every detail is now the Raider way. Josh is fair, he will call out a player, and a coach. That is not good for some people."
• I asked them how they felt that impacted Derek: "He holds the ball and touches the ball on half of the plays every game. Of course he got ripped more than anyone, he was the guy who touched the ball more than anyone. I think he felt that McDaniels was unfairly putting everything on him."
• I shared the sentiments above with one of Derek's best friends on the team, who said: "I can see that. Looking back, I do not think Josh was too hard on Derek; I don't think he had taken such blunt force criticism in front of the team like that, and I think he was hurt."
• Longtime Raider great and color analyst of the radio game broadcast Lincoln Kennedy had previously spoken about that side of Derek Carr.
• My colleague from ESPN, Paul Gutierrez, wrote a book about the Raiders.

• In my opinion, it is the definitive book on the Silver and Black.
• In Gutierrez's book, If These Walls Could Talk, Kennedy, a Raiders' team employee, said of the then-team franchise quarterback: "I like Derek. I think he is a nice guy. Don't get me wrong, but he can be childish and immature, and if somebody says something bad about him, he sulks, like a little boy who takes his ball and goes into the corner. He's a good quarterback."
• Kennedy's previous description fits how players explained the relationship between Carr and McDaniels. Kennedy's comments came years before.
• One player said: "I love Derek and wish he were still here. But I love the way Josh does it. Everyone on this team is held to one standard, and you are to perform at a championship level every play and every day. I liked Gruden, but he was never wrong. I also wanted Bisaccia, but certain people didn't get it (criticism in front of the team) like others."

• So I asked a player when he thought the breakdown was evident. He laughed and said: "We all knew when we barley lost to Kansas City at Kansas City. We all felt like we played our best game so far. If you ask me, it was our best game all year."
• They elaborated: "We sat down to watch the film, and Josh made it clear that the Chiefs are the gold standard in our division. He talked about how we can't be happy to have almost beaten them. Now we knew why, where, and how we had to get better."

• The player added: "We all felt pretty good, but under McDaniels, there are no moral victories. I would doubt Josh would say it, but I believe he thought had we won the game, the entire trajectory of the season would change."
• Numerous people have told me that after the loss to the Chiefs in Kansas City, they understood this team could compete with anyone in the McDaniels system when everyone did their job at a high level.
• One team employee told me: "After the bye, guys came back, and I think Josh sensed this team had a clear vision. His talk while watching the film was the quintessential New England moment. Not good enough; I mean, everyone was under the scope."
• The team employee said: "I remember one of Carr's friends saying that Derek was hurting. While he felt the team should've won in KC, he thought McDaniels' relentless and consistent push was not what the team needed."
• One player summed it up best to me: "Josh sees a standard, and you have to meet that standard every second to win the trophy.  I believe Derek saw it as constant negativity."
• They added: "Derek was all in but I think he felt like the fun was being sucked out of the team. No one outworked Derek, but McDaniels was relentless. McDaniels has a Super Bowl or bust mentality, and Derek had nine years of this."

• That next game in Allegiant Stadium on Oct. 23 against the Houston Texans was telling.
• Against a Texans team that wasn't good, the Raiders won by 18. But that win wasn't good enough for McDaniels. The Raiders had not played well.
• One team leader told me: "After we beat the Texans, Josh really made it clear that the opponent we play each week is ourselves. He talked about we should have won but that we had played down to the level of competition. McDaniels had seen the previous game in Kansas City what we were capable of, we didn't play with that same intensity versus Houston, and he didn't appreciate it."

• One member of the Silver and Black organization explained it this way: "Josh preaches process, and fans hate to hear that. But, he wants you to do what the Patriots did all the time; you don't play up or down to competition; you play your best every day, every practice, and every game. I got what he was selling after Houston; I don't think many thought Derek had."
• According to many inside the organization, the next week leading up to the New Orleans game was tough. The practices were acceptable, but Carr started to become distant.  Not that he wasn't around, but that he had a wall up.
• The following week the Raiders go destroyed in New Orleans. No one even looked like they wanted to be there.
• As one organizational member said: "Go back and watch the film. Derek distanced himself. I love the guy, but he felt the world's weight on his shoulders. Derek was different this year, we all saw it, and I think it wasn't fun anymore."

• According to one player: "I think Derek became more concerned about Josh's criticism than he did anything else. The guy was trying, but he had to have a little Josh McDaniels devil on his shoulder. While other guys liked that McDaniels held staff and players to one standard, I think Derek was like a cat in your headlights."
• One player said: “Josh McDaniels had sold Derek on how much he believed in him, and the criticism, I think, and it is just one guy's opinion, made Derek think that Josh was dishonest.”
• McDaniels tried multiple times to reach Carr, but as one person told me: "The trust was non-existent. To Derek's credit, he never bad-mouthed him, but when Josh talked about execution errors, I think Derek took it like Josh McDaniels was saying: 'Derek Carr sucks,' and that just wasn't the case."
• McDaniels wanted Carr to understand that the criticism was there for everyone. It wasn't just directed at him; those attempts didn't work.
• After a collapse in Jacksonville, the Raiders returned to Allegiant Stadium. It had been a good week of practice, but Carr was not the same, according to multiple people.
• In perhaps the most embarrassing loss of the Mark Davis era, the Indianapolis Colts, who many thought were intentionally tanking by hiring an ESPN analyst in Jeff Saturday, who had never coached above high school. Then Saturday's subsequent hiring of someone to call the plays who had never done it at any level, the problems hit a crescendo level.
• Multiple sources say the locker room after the Colts' embarrassment was heated. Very heated.

• Afterward, emotional, Carr said: "I can't speak for everybody. I know where I stand, and I love the Silver and Black. I'm going to give it everything I can every time I go out there, and I can't speak for everybody, for every man, what's going on in their head. But I can tell you what's going on in my head, and I'm going to give it all that I can every single time."
• Carr meant it, but it wasn't taken well by his teammates. After those comments, the locker room began to shift.
• No one ever questioned Carr's heart. No one ever questioned Carr's effort, but he had teammates who questioned his play.
• McDaniels and Ziegler, who had been given the green light to do whatever they thought they needed to do for the team to become a Super Bowl contender, were frustrated.
• The Derek Carr they had admired from a distance was not the Derek Carr they were watching week after week.
• Carr's execution errors, injuries, lack of depth on the roster, and terrible defense all added up.
• Carr had made decisions that were not in his nature. To Carr's credit, he had battled back and/or rib issues, but his decision-making was poor, and his execution was sometimes unfathomable.
• McDaniels knew his team was in trouble. After three straight losses, including the embarrassment to the Colts, and the emotion of Carr and the fire on his team, he knew he needed to do something.
• While never deviating from his process, he did his best to try to keep things moving in a forward direction.
• The team came together after that.
• This team knew what they could do; they had seen it on the road at Kansas City.

• Please make no mistake, they hadn't lived up to it, but McDaniels saw what they could be.
• Throughout it all, McDaniels kept preaching the process. Guys appreciated what he was trying to do.
• When it was clear guys were no longer going to be viable in the long term, they got rid of them.
• Through it all, McDaniels hadn't given up on Carr.
• To his credit, Carr was still making an effort.
• The relationship was fractured.
• While McDaniels believed in Carr and liked him personally, handling his quarterback was difficult.
• McDaniels isn't one to coddle people. He works long hours and expect guys to do their job.
• For all of his critics, Tom Brady, the best of all time, is harder on himself than anyone.
• As one former New England teammate of Brady said: "You would rather have a Bill Belichick tirade at you then a Tom Brady. He demands so much of himself, that when he is screaming at you, you have no other choice but to take it."
• That was not Carr's style. Carr is not one to get in the face of his teammates and demand their adherence to a process.
• That doesn't mean that Carr isn't capable, but the emotion in the locker room after the loss to the Colts was fueled by players not caring for being called out by a quarterback who they felt was playing "Terrible."
• One organization member said: "I have no doubts that Derek liked and respected McDaniels. I also have no doubts that Josh McDaniels liked and respected Derek. I also don't think the marriage worked."
• As the team suffered through its three-game losing streak, pressure mounted.
• Mark Davis had made it known that the McDaniels and Dave Ziegler regime would get 2023, but if there was going to be 2024, 2023 couldn't look like 2022.
• The more McDaniels and Ziegler watched 2022 unfold, they also kept their eyes focused on 2023 and beyond.
• Ziegler and McDaniels aren't heartless. They were frustrated, like Carr.
• One member of the New England regime told me: "Dave and Josh didn't fit here. Well, let me say this. They fit and won a lot, but personality-wise, they didn't. This big chess match between Mr. Kraft and Bill is always behind the scenes, but for Ziegler and McDaniels it is just two guys that keep their noses to the ground and work. Josh and Dave are both much more relational than Bill."
• The Raiders then won four of the next five games. While the Carr and McDaniels wall was still up, the playoffs were still an option, and the team seemed to have found some magic, missing since 2021 ended.
• The Raiders lost a game they should have won against the Rams and then won a game against the Patriots they should have lost.
• In both games, Carr struggled with execution at times with decisions that made no sense. While none of the losses sit squarely on his shoulders, the McDaniels and Ziegler brain trust believes that better quarterback play can overcome weaknesses. They had seen Brady do it for years and even Mac Jones as a rookie.
• When the Raiders went to Pittsburgh, there was a lot of optimism. Despite the looming cold weather, there were still playoff dreams on the horizon, the Carr frustration with McDaniels, and the McDaniels disappointment in Carr, this team still had a chance.
• In Pittsburgh, the weather was terrible, and the play calling was not the greatest as the Raiders moved away from the run in bad weather; but Carr's decision-making was, at best, suspect.
• McDaniels was used to having the quarterback in Brady, and one season with Mac Jones that rose with the playoffs on the line.  Jones even garnered Pro Bowl status as a rookie.
• While McDaniels knew that the season being a disappointment was far from sitting only on Carr's shoulders, he would fix his defense and upgrade his offensive line in the off-season.
• The quarterback spot was another story.
• A team source told me after the Pittsburgh game that the Raiders were strongly considering benching Carr for the remaining two games.
• No one wanted Carr to be a scapegoat, but Raider Nation is divided into two groups.
• One group loves Carr and swears he can do no wrong.
• The other can't stand Carr and probably still blame him for the final two losses.
• Both groups in their fandom are irrational.
• After years of terrible drafting that has left the Raiders with nearly zero depth, multiple coaches, and almost no defense, it is unfair and illogical to blame Derek Carr entirely for the woes of the franchise.
• Despite numerous fourth-quarter comebacks, it is equally unfair and illogical not to blame Derek Carr for the mistakes, poor execution, and failures.
• McDaniels believed in Carr. What made it worse for him and Ziegler was that they liked the man they were about to sit.
• A source close to McDaniels told me: "It hurt Josh to bench Derek. I am not saying he wouldn't do it, he did, but it hurt. His time in Denver changed him. He isn't Bill Belichick and doesn't want to be. He has become his father, and his dad is all about people. A big reason Josh came to Las Vegas because of Derek Carr; now he was benching him. He felt like he had failed as well."
• Considering the respect, I asked McDaniels about the personal dynamic with benching Carr. Here is my entire question and his answer: Q: You talked to Derek Carr before you came here. You like him, he likes you, and you guys are respectful of each other. Is making those decisions the worst part about coaching?  Coach McDaniels: “Probably. And I think the hard part is that when you do it long enough, you ultimately end up making decisions that are really strictly only about football or performance, but not really about the way you feel about the person as a human being. And so, I think as a younger guy I would sit in here and say I probably had a harder time understanding that dynamic because you wrap everything up into the conversation that you're involved in. But as I've been around long enough to see people come and go, and relationships sustain themselves beyond that, that's up to the two people. It really is. And we've cut players, traded players, released players, or people have retired, coaches have been fired. I've been fired. And you still have great relationships with the people that you worked for, or you worked with. And again, I think that's a personal choice. I choose to invest in the relationships with those people and if something has to be done from a business perspective, or somebody makes a choice to move in a different direction, you have to respect that and move on. But it doesn't necessarily have to affect your relationship."
• Ziegler and McDaniels knew that Carr was loved in his locker room, and they also knew that while Carr had lost no friends in the locker room, one advantage to the new Raiders way is that everyone knows how the others are performing. Derek's teammates knew this was not all his fault. Derek's teammates also knew he had not played well.
• As the franchise quarterback and highest-paid player, that isn't acceptable.
• As one player said: "Maxx Crosby, Josh Jacobs and Davante Adams played on the team, they played at a high level all year. Let's not pretend it was mean spirited to put the blame, when due on Derek Carr as well."
• While I believe the franchise would have preferred I not ask my question to McDaniels on benching Carr, I did.
• Carr was the consummate professional. When it was explained to him that they were not making him the scapegoat but that they had to decide to bench him because of the contract and guarantees, he got it.
• Derek understood when the team explained how his presence could distract both parties, and he stayed away.
• Hurt? I am sure. Carr had been a trooper. A true professional.
• But, he also had been paid handsomely. You might not like that Derek was benched; that is fair. But acting as if he was a victim is foolish.
• While I am sure, every player wants the unmitigated support of Mark Davis, his only obligation is to honor contracts. Mark Davis did his job.
• Neither party is happy that it came to this.
• But both parties are excited about the future.
• Derek Carr's devotion to this franchise and fan base was absolute. He is genuine.
• Josh McDaniels' respect for and admiration of Derek Carr was absolute. He is genuine.
• While Carr's teammates will miss their friend, they respect that McDaniels is singularly focused. They all know how they played in Kansas City.

• As one told me: "If we had played every game this season as we did in Kansas City, and we weren't perfect, you don't think we are in the playoffs? Don't you think we win 11 or 12 games? F**k yeah we do. I see what Josh is doing; he wants us to be consistent."
• Consistent is a word McDaniels uses, and so do his players.
• Now they have to make it happen here in the desert, or that lack of consistency will yield the same results as his tenure in Denver.
• Mark Davis looms. He has had two coaches lead his beloved Raiders to the playoffs. What do those two men have in common? He fired them.
• For McDaniels, he needs to find some consistency quickly. Mark Davis wants to believe in him. Mark Davis does, for now. But while 2023 is certain, 2024 is not, and if 2023 looks as inconsistent as the team did in 2022 from a coach who preaches consistency, then the consistency will be that McDaniels will get fired again.

The NFL Scouting Combine is Feb. 28-March 6, 2023, held at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis, Ind. March 7, 2023, before 4 p.m. EST, is the club's deadline to designate Franchise or Transition Players.

March 13-15 is the free agent negotiation period. During that time, starting at 12 p.m. EST on March 13 and ending at 3:59:59 p.m. EST on March 15, clubs are permitted to contact and enter into contract negotiations with the certified agents of players who will become Unrestricted Free Agents upon the expiration of their 2022 Player Contracts at 4 p.m EST on March 15.

The 2023 NFL Year and Free Agency period begins at 4 p.m. EST on March 15. The Raiders are expected to be significant players in the free-agent market this season.

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