Derek Carr upset over disappointing Sunday performance

Quarterback Derek Carr had a rough outing last night against the Arizona Cardinals, failing to finish drives as the Oakland Raiders offense was forced to settle for five first half field goals while the first team offense was on the field. A failure to execute putting a sour note on the Raiders third preseason game.

Carr finished with 18-34 passing and 213 yards, but his accuracy was lacking, especially on third downs to ensure that Sebastian Janikowski had plenty of field goal attempts to go into the season. The Raiders leaving far too many points on the board in an upsetting night for Carr that ended with the starter throwing a Pick-6 after being given a drive in the third quarter to attempt to end his evening on a high note.

Naturally, with Carr being the leader that he is the young quarterback was not afraid to own up to the mistakes that were made during Sunday’s game. Noting that the offense needs to make some adjustments before Week 1 against the Bengals and saying that the entire unit including himself were upset following the game after settling for five field goals plus an interception while in scoring territory.

“There are still some things we have to clean up,” Carr said to the media in the locker room following Sunday’s game. “There are still some things that are just that close (to being correct) with the whole offense. As an offense, we’re pretty upset right now. We wanted to score a lot of points, and we felt like we left a lot out there. Honestly, we did.”

Carr also owned up to the mistake on the interception where after the pocket collapsed he tried to make a desperation play that fell right into the hands of the Cardinals defense who took advantage with the interception that was returned for a touchdown to end the first unit offense’s night.

“I made a mistake. I did,” Carr said. “I’ll learn from that. I have to know that, when we’re getting late in the down and the timing isn’t there, just throw it away and play another down. Kicks are better than turnovers.”

Despite the disappointments, Carr did note that he felt the team drove the ball down the field well against the Cards, which they did as they put themselves in the position to put points on the scoreboard despite not finishing with a touchdown.

“I wouldn’t say the offense took a step back, because (at times) we were very explosive,” Carr said. “There were some good things, but there were some very bad things that we have to correct. We have some time before the Cincinnati week gets here to get those things fixed. I know that we’re going to work to do it.”

There are concerns around Carr’s preseason performance as he still has yet to throw a passing touchdown and struggled with accuracy on Sunday, but the benefit to his August struggles is that it is only preseason. While that may be a fortunate excuse it does give the Raiders starting QB the opportunity to put all of those concerns away starting with Week 1 against the Bengals. If Carr can throw touchdown passes and finish drives when the points matter, all of the question marks will go away quickly even if the concerns are legitimate over if the quarterback can consistently find the back of the endzone after some less than flattering preseason performances in the redzone.

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