Derek Carr is six years into his NFL career, yet he has never started a playoff game. Granted, he would have been the starter in 2016 if not for a season-ending injury, but the fact remains that he has finished with a losing record in five of his six NFL seasons.
Is Carr simply not the answer at quarterback for the Raiders?
“The problem I have with answering that question is Derek has never had a real No. 1 receiver,” Hall of Fame wide receiver Tim Brown said on The Zach Gelb Show. “I don’t care who you are in this league. You’ve got to have a No. 1 guy that everybody knows on third down and six that he’s about to get the ball and you got to find a way to stop him – and he’s never had that guy. I think from that standpoint, it makes it very difficult to say, ‘You got to replace Derek.’ I would love to see him with a No. 1 receiver, and let’s see if there’s anything different. If there is, then he’s your guy. If not, then Derek understands this is a big-time game. There are 31 other teams out there, brother, that you can go play for if it doesn’t work out. But I think Gruden is going to find that guy. They’ve got so many great receivers coming out this year out of college. We’ll see what happens.”
At this point, you’re probably thinking what Zach Gelb was thinking: What about Amari Cooper? Is he not a No. 1 receiver?
“Well, Amari had a problem, and his problem was he didn’t really like football,” Brown said. “Gruden is one of those guys that you have to love the game – because he’ll drive you nuts if you don’t love the game. All he wants to talk about is football. All he wants to talk about is a play that he thought of late last night at 4 o’clock in the morning, and when he’s saying it to you, he needs to see a reaction. And if you’re not that guy, if you can’t play that role with him – we say all the time, ‘If you don’t feel it, fake it. Just get through the day.’ From what I hear, him and Amari would have these conversations where they were all one-sided. That’s a very difficult thing. It’s like being a relationship. If there’s no communication, then [it’s not going to work].
Cooper, 25, has finished with 1,000+ receiving yards in four of his five NFL seasons. In 2019, he had 79 catches for a career-high 1,189 yards and a career-high eight touchdowns.
“We’ve seen that he is a very, very good football player,” Brown said. “But we saw this year that there are some lapses there because of his interests in the game, I would assume, but I don’t know that to be the case. But at the same time, he’s doing well, and we got to find a guy that can get it done.”