Quarterback Derek Carr
The Oakland Raiders have officially extended quarterback Derek Carr's contract for another five years. In his first three seasons with the team, No. 4 has posted an impressive stat line with 1,055 completed passes, 11,194 passing yards, 81 touchdowns, and a cumulative rating of 87.9. The team has certainly reaped the benefits from having Carr under center, and it seems as though they will continue to do so going forward.
Carr officially signed his contract extension Friday morning, and shortly after, he followed it with a press conference with the local media.
Here are the quick hits from his time presser:
Carr expressed how he feels to have the deal done and in the rear view mirror.
"The fact that it's done and then I can just focus on football, that was the main reason I set a training camp deadline. I would be doing this organization a disservice if I was like, 'No, let's keep talking about it.' It's so hard to win in this league, I have to focus all of my attention during training camp on winning and not business. That was the only reason I set that is because I was not going to do this organization or my teammates or coaches a disservice by having my mind, even one percent, somewhere else."
He reflected on the hardship he faced while overcoming his broken leg.
"I had to sit there and watch my teammates go out there without me for the first time ever. That was the hardest thing for me, to know that I had to sit there a little nauseous. That was probably from the meds to keep the pain away after surgery, but I think a little bit more of it had to do with me not being out there and helping my team. I had to sit there and learn; I need to do a better job as a leader of preparing everybody, because we never know what's going to happen. It showed me ways that I could help this team be ever better, it showed me ways that I could be even better as a teammate, showed me ways I could be better as a leader."
No. 4 spoke about his involvement throughout the process, and trying to do what's best for the team.
"The main thing that I could just remember was all along the way, I was like, 'How do we keep my teammates?' That's, I don't know if it's weird how it sounds, but that was just what I kept telling him. I was like, 'OK that's cool. Yeah that's awesome, wow, cool. Is this good for Gabe [Jackson]? Is this good for Khalil [Mack]? Is this good for Amari [Cooper]?' He can tell you himself, these are things that I said to him numerous amounts of times. I didn't want to hurt our team; that's the last thing I would ever want to do. So, hopefully we didn't. (laughter) That's the last thing that I intended to do and that's kind of why I was so involved."
General Manager Reggie McKenzie also provided some input, stating drafting Carr in 2014 was a no-brainer.
"I'll tell you what, from the outset when we drafted him, before he got here, we were extremely excited that he was still sitting there at 36. Let's put that out there right now. The rookie mini-camp, that was… I think my son could've figured that one out, 'Man, he can throw, daddy.' It was easy to see early. We knew the type of person we were getting in the draft process. Put it together and it was pretty early, very early."
McKenzie elaborated on the decision to extend Carr, and that it was an easy process.
"We didn't think it was going to get to training camp, to be honest with you because from the outset, both sides wanted the deal done. I thought our guys did a great job getting together and hammering it out. We both wanted to the same thing. That part was easy. We could tell that Derek wanted to be here. And we let him know, without a doubt, we wanted him here. It was easy. It was easy. We didn't make it hard. Derek, Tim didn't make it hard. But it is a relief to know that going into training camp, he's our guy. And it's a relief off of Derek's shoulders."
