Nov 30, 2014; St. Louis, MO, USA; Oakland Raiders quarterback Derek Carr (4) is sacked by St. Louis Rams defensive tackle Michael Brockers (90) and defensive end William Hayes (95) at Edward Jones Dome. The Rams defeated the Raiders 52-0. Mandatory Credit: Kirby Lee-USA TODAY Sports
Derek Carr was pulled in a 52-0 blowout of the St. Louis Rams on Sunday and although interim head coach Tony Sparano pulled his rookie for injury prevention measures, it appears that the benching during the drubbing in St. Louis will not change the status of Carr’s starts over the teams final games of the 2014 season.
Talking to the media on Tuesday, Sparano said that he has no plans to sit Carr for the rest of the season. Opting to give the promising second round quarterback the reps in the final month of the season.
“There hasn’t been really any thought about that,” Sparano said when asked about questions surrounding making a move to bring in veteran quarterback Matt Schaub for the rest of the season. “I didn’t get a lot of those questions , so there really hasn’t been a lot of that kind of thought. There was a thought about that in the fourth quarter of the game when I decided to do that and that was purely my decision to do that at that point. There was just no need to keep Derek out there at that point any longer. Give Matt an opportunity to go out there and let Matt play a little bit and that was that.”
Carr has played well this year despite some struggles along that way that should be expected for any rookie quarterback. Peyton Manning and Troy Aikman both famously took their lumps before quickly becoming superstars as their teams improved along with their development, giving Carr the four final starts to finish the season likely will do more good than harm even if the Raiders struggles as a team are sure to continue over December. Hopefully the learning experience of a difficult rookie season will allow Carr to become more like Manning/Aikman and less like his older brother David in terms of taking early adversity and turning it into later success.