Quarterback Derek Carr
Oakland Raiders quarterback Derek Carr threw for 300 yards on the dot in Week 9, and more importantly notched another win in his belt as the team took down the Miami Dolphins. The Silver and Black are one win away from reaching .500 once again, but they'll have to wait until Week 11 against the New England Patriots if they want to try to accomplish that. The team is on a bye this week, but before the players officially leave the facility for a few days, Carr met with the media to recap last week's triumph.
Here are the quick hits from his press conference:
Carr shared what he's told the rookies in terms of their preparation for the bye week.
"A lot of our rookies are guys that are on the practice squad or show teams, so their workload is different this week. Wednesdays and Thursdays are their big days, so you make sure they know they still need to be running, they still need to lifting hard and getting in shape so that when we need the looks next week, they don't come out here and pop a hammy or something like that. Those are just little things that I've seen over the course of my four years that could help those guys."
No. 4 broke down what makes tight end Jared Cook such a valuable member of the offense.
"He does a good job of running with speed and getting vertical on all of his routes, so you never know what route it is because if you wait too long or if you sit on something, he can run right by you, as we saw it, I think it was the first third down. He ran by the linebacker and so if you hesitate for one second, he can run by you, but also his ability to run all the routes inside and outside. It's really a quarterback's best friend; that and a good offensive line. Those two are a good thing to have."
After serving his one-game suspension, Carr is happy to have running back Marshawn Lynch in the mix once again.
"Having him back there the way he can run physically, how gifted he is with his vision, as you saw on the trap play, he got up into the second level, third level. He can make somebody miss and go. The more we can help him do that and those kind of things, it's going to be better for our offense. Having him back was awesome. Obviously, he had the two touchdowns and I don't even know if there was a thought in my head to throw that second one. Make sure I give him the ball."
He talked about how he'll spend his bye week.
"I have a process that I've done for the last three years, so I am going to do it again this year in how I go about the bye week to get ahead, but at the same time, this is a time to recharge up here (pointing to his head), have fun with your family, spend time with your kids and take your wife out to eat. That's more important this week."
Carr commended second-year wide receiver Johnny Holton on his growth in the past year.
"He's a good blocker. He can come in and catch deep balls. Today with some of the veteran guys getting a little bit of rest, he gets in there. I'm throwing him routes that I'm throwing to any of my receivers. I say that to say that from day one to what happened today, it would've been hard for me to believe, but he worked his tail off."
