The Oakland Raiders are off to a fast start to the 2019 NFL season, winning three of their first five games, thanks to some offseason preparation from Derek Carr.
The Oakland Raiders are 3-2 coming out of the bye week and are currently a half game behind the Kansas City Chiefs in the AFC West race. With a week off of practice, Raiders all-time passing leader and franchise quarterback Derek Carr joined the Raider Cody Podcast to discuss his preparation for this season.
All athletes who are, or achieve to be at an elite level, will constantly strive to improve themselves, their play, as well as their preparation. Professional athletes are no different, as the demands and speed of the game grow exponentially so does the amount of preparation that goes into games.
This offseason was no different, when the Raiders finished the 2018 season 4-12, Derek Carr got to work immediately.
During the off-season, Carr’s focus was extending plays and moving in the pocket. During the bye week, Carr joined the Raider Cody Podcast and spoke about his off-season preparations. Raiders head coach, Jon Gruden had placed an emphasis on Derek using his legs more to extend plays and buy more time for the offense to work.
In five games, Derek’s play extension using his athleticism has certainly been prevalent with 27 yards rushing that has put the Raiders in position to continue drives. Carr also discussed how his pre-snap comfort-ability and knowledge of the offense has allowed him to help control the running game and set Josh Jacobs up for success on a number of his runs.
Gruden attributes a lot of the success in the running game and offensive production to Carr’s mastery of the offense and adjustments prior to the snap. Gruden stated that Carr is “coaching players in the huddle and on the sidelines/ making a lot of recognition and adjustments at the line of scrimmage”.
Carr currently leads the NFL in completion percentage with 73.3% and while he isn’t putting up gaudy numbers, he is effectively running the offense the way that Coach Gruden has designed it.
As the season progresses we hope to see continual growth of Carr and the Raiders offense, historically Carr has proven to excel in the second year in an offensive system and based on the first five games the trend seems to be in the right direction, also knowing the complexities of Jon Gruden’s offense and Carr’s mastery of the offense will serve the Raiders well.