After four years in the NFL with the Oakland Raiders, cornerback TJ Carrie is set to officially become an unrestricted free agent in March. However, according to a recent article written by Matt Kawahara of the SFGate, Carrie would love to re-sign with the Raiders and continue his career in Oakland moving forward.

“My intention is to be here,” Carrie said. “I’m a hometown kid. I’m a Bay Area kid. I couldn’t see myself being anywhere else than Oakland … I’ve loved and I’ve dreamed of playing for the Raiders for such a long time. And now that I’ve had the opportunity to play there for four years, I want to finish there.”

Carrie, who recently became a father earlier this month with the birth of his new baby boy, is embracing the pressure of the upcoming free agency frenzy as well as his new role being a loving dad.

“It’s going to be up to me to continue to perform at a high level for them to feel the continual intrigue to want to keep me,” Carrie said. “I love that pressure, because I love when the ball is in my court. So it’s something that, I know March is really when (free agency) starts to go down. And I think around that time my son will be a little bit older, I’ll focus a little bit on free agency, and make some more decisions.”

Carrie, who racked up 84 total tackles (the third-most made by all cornerbacks during the 2017 NFL regular season) and made nine pass deflections this season for Oakland, said he recently met with new Raiders head coach Jon Gruden and other members of the team's coaching staff on Tuesday.

Jon Gruden, Raiders
Marcio Jose Sanchez/The Associated Press

“Coach Gruden is a very energetic man,” Carrie said. “He has a lot of high energy. He’s a coach that, to me, likes to have fun, but he’s a very business-oriented guy as well. ‘Come to the building, yeah, we’re going to have a little fun, but we’re also going to get to business.’ There’s a lot of things that I can imagine are going to change.”

There have already been quite a few changes to the Raiders' roster on defense since Gruden was officially named the team's head coach in January. Starting cornerback David Amerson was released by Oakland just one day after Super Bowl LII.

The team could also decide to move on from starting cornerback Sean Smith, who is owed $8.25 million next season and faces legal trouble for a July 4 arrest for assault and battery charges.