ALAMEDA – Derek Carr clearly is comfortable operating the Raiders' offensive scheme. Jon Gruden’s system can be complex and hard on a quarterback, but Carr is achieving a level of mastery in his second season within it.
He isn’t just executing play calls. He’s orchestrating the unit. He is demanding at times, yet confident in the decisions he’s making.
Carr said that’s a product of experience and time to work out kinks that some organizations don’t provide. Smart decisions and reads are combining with tremendous arm talent to form one efficient quarterback clearly taking positive strides.
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That was evident in Sunday’s 31-24 victory over the Detroit Lions and in several recent outings.
He has completed 70 percent of his passes for 1,285 yards and 8.5 yards per attempt. He has nine touchdowns and one interception in that span.
Part of that is talent and being in complete command. Gruden added another factor to the equation explaining why Carr has made strides.
“I think he’s a coach on the field instead of a player on the field,” Gruden said in his Monday press conference. “He was learning a new offense last year, playing behind two rookie tackles. We had a lot of issues, a lot of injuries, a lot of problems last year. I don’t really want to reiterate those, but he was playing the best he could play and he played pretty good.
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“Now he’s coaching. He sees things before it happens. He’s as good a coach as we have on our staff. He’s a heady player. He has incredible arm talent. We know that. But I think his ownership of the offense, his leadership on field, his coach-on-the-field demeanor is really important to us, especially with the young players that we have.”
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Gruden has seen excellence and continued progress recently from Carr, previously calling the scramble-drill touchdown pass to Hunter Renfrow the best he’s ever seen from the quarterback.
“He made some plays [Sunday] while scrambling that were signature plays, things we have been coaching him on,” Gruden said. “He has really responded to things we want him to do. The touchdown to Renfrow was great. The bad snap, where he got control and was able to throw the ball away saved us three points. He has done a lot of things at a high level.”