Derek Carr will represent the Raiders in the Pro Bowl games, his final time wearing the team’s gear. The questions are how and when Carr’s next team is decided.
As much as the Raiders surely want to trade Carr, rather than cut him, it’s complicated.
His contract includes $40.4 million in injury guaranteed salary that becomes fully guaranteed on Feb. 15, and they need his approval to consummate a deal.
“I think here this week at the Senior Bowl, obviously everybody’s here. This is a good time to have those conversations,” Raiders General Manager Dave Ziegler said Thursday on SiriusXM NFL Radio. “There’s going to be people interested in Derek Carr. There’s no doubt about that. He’s been a good football player in this league for quite some time. Like I said, he’s a phenomenal human being, and we’ll kind of see where it goes.”
The audio clip posted by Sirius does not indicate whether he was asked about Carr’s no-trade clause or the report that the Raiders have yet to give Carr permission to talk to other teams about a potential trade.
The Raiders benched Carr with two games remaining in the season, and he finished with his worst passer rating (86.3) since his rookie season of 2014.
The Panthers, Saints, Bucs, Falcons, Jets, Colts and Commanders are among the teams in the market for a veteran quarterback. The Raiders also now are in search of a new one after nine seasons with Carr.
“Derek’s a phenomenal player, too, and a phenomenal human being,” Ziegler said. “Obviously, we have some things, some dominoes to fall, and some things that we have to look at relative to his situation and our quarterback situation going forward in ’23. But no position is as important as the quarterback position. You all know that; everybody knows that. So we’re gonna be putting a lot of work in on that front and kind of see how it all plays out here.”