Graney: Finality comes with Carr refusing trade from Raiders
It’s a messy ending to a divorce that became all but official when Derek Carr was benched for the final two games of the regular season, finality for a player who at one time vowed he would never play for another team.
If this wasn’t the plan from the beginning, the Raiders sure gave themselves an out to make it so.
It was always about how Carr’s three-year contract extension was structured. Always about the team having an ability to walk away from the quarterback after just one year.
Which it reportedly will now.
The nine-year starter informed the Raiders on Sunday he won’t accept a trade to any team, which means Carr is expected to be released ahead of Wednesday’s deadline. It was Carr’s right. That’s what a no-trade clause in the deal allowed him.
He will now become a free agent.
Dave Ziegler and Josh McDaniels as the new general manager and coach were never totally sold on Carr leading the Raiders to a championship. How the extension was written proved that much. This was the ultimate of wait-and-see approaches.
Carr was essentially auditioning for his future with the Raiders this past season. Didn’t work out.
Know this: If it’s true the Saints were the only team that expressed a desire in trading for Carr, the rest of the NFL has spoken. Teams would rather deal strictly with the player than lose any assets for him.
New Orleans reportedly wanted Carr to renegotiate his contract to a lower number, which now makes where his market value will eventually fall all the more interesting.
Coming next?
When you finish an NFL season 6-11, questions need to be answered. Changes need to made. It’s true for the Raiders, whose first season under new management was hardly something to savor.
The team isn’t close right now to a Super Bowl level. To this particular moment and game, which the Chiefs won Sunday in beating the Eagles 38-35.
The Raiders have several needs but none more critical than quarterback. The Eagles have had one of the more desired options in football with Jalen Hurts — a winning quarterback on his rookie contract (and now in line for a gigantic raise).
This is the optimum choice for a team with money to spend and numerous holes to fill elsewhere. This is the move on which the Raiders should be focused.
They hold the No. 7 pick in this year’s draft and could conceivably move up should Ziegler and McDaniels fall in love with one of the top-tier quarterback prospects. Might come at a hefty price, but there is no more important a position.
I know. Aaron Rodgers. But once the Green Bay star emerges from that dark, lonely room with a better sense of where his football future lies, it still doesn’t make him the best choice for Las Vegas.
I suppose you can do both — draft a rookie and trade for Rodgers — but he can’t cover anyone and doesn’t rush the passer. And what would the give-back to the Packers be for a 39-year-old quarterback? How much would be too much?
A name like Jimmy Garoppolo could be a more-than-competent bridge to a starter-in-waiting and allow funds to be dispersed elsewhere as a defensive rebuild commences.
Need several pieces
Ziegler and McDaniels are now talking of a process when constructing the Raiders into a contender, and should be more interested in acquiring several capable pieces than swinging for the fences on one big-named acquisition.
All such decisions will made in time, but one tenure appears complete.
This was Carr on the day he signed that extension last April:
“I’ve only wanted to be a Raider,” he said. “I told my agent, ‘I’m either going to be a Raider or I’m going to be playing golf.’ I don’t want to play anywhere else. That’s how much this place means to me. I was dead serious.”
He will be released and play elsewhere.
Dead serious, is right.
Ed Graney is a Sigma Delta Chi Award winner for sports column writing and can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com. He can be heard on “The Press Box,” ESPN Radio 100.9 FM and 1100 AM, from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday. Follow @edgraney on Twitter
