The Las Vegas Raiders kicked off their campaign with a disappointing 24-19 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers, and quarterback Derek Carr did leave a lot to be desired in his season debut.
Carr logged 22-of-37 completed passes for 295 yards and two touchdowns. He gave up no less than three interceptions during the game, as his offensive line just failed to give him enough protection against the Chargers.
Derek Carr clearly hasn't adjusted well to new head coach Josh McDaniels' system just yet. After their Week 1 loss, Carr got brutally honest about life under the Raiders' new shot-caller (via Vic Tafur of The Athletic):
“There were decisions I made in the game last week that happened before the ball was snapped,” Carr said. “I already knew where the ball was going, and we threw it there, we moved on. Whether it’s a touchdown, complete — whatever, it didn’t matter. You just move on to the next one.”
It seems like McDaniels has significantly reduced Carr's on-the-fly decision-making in terms of reading defenses at the line of scrimmage. This could merely be an awkward transition period between the star quarterback and his new coach, but at the same time, what cannot be denied is that Carr doesn't sound completely happy about the major switch.
“I’m not thinking, ‘How many catches does he have, how many times have I thrown it to him?’ — I leave that to Josh,” Carr said about wide receiver Hunter Renfrow's limited targets against the Chargers. “I tell those guys, the targets and all that kind of stuff, go talk to Josh. I’m going to read it out exactly how he’s taught me, and I’m going to do my best to do it that way.”
To be fair, Carr had Davante Adams to look for all game long. Las Vegas' new big-name signing made his highly-anticipated debut in Week 1, and it isn't surprising that he served as Carr's primary target throughout the contest.
At this point, it seems like Derek Carr is just going to defer to whatever Josh McDaniels draws up:
If the defense “fools you on the coverage, then the ball will go somewhere else based on the coverages that Josh has schemed it up for,” Carr said.
Could there be trouble in paradise this early in the season?
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