As of this posting, Derek Carr is still a Raiders quarterback.
But that is expected to change in the coming days, as Las Vegas is likely to release Carr before his $40.4 million in guarantees kick in next week.
It’s the end of a nine-year tenure with the franchise for Carr, who was benched in December after the Raiders were eliminated from postseason contention. That decision reverberated in the locker room, according to running back Josh Jacobs.
“It was definitely weird, man,” Jacobs said on Thursday’s episode of PFT Live. “Just like, you can kind of see the signs that something was going to happen. The season we were having — we lost that last game [to the Steelers] where we knew we weren’t going to go to the playoffs because we had to win out. We knew that our playoff hopes were over.
“So we already kind of knew that they were about to shake some stuff up because they didn’t have anything to lose at that point. But we didn’t know it was going to be like that.”
Jacobs said players started to understand what was going on when Carr wasn’t in meetings. Then everyone rallied around Jarrett Stidham, who ended up performing well in the Week 17 loss to San Francisco.
“Stiddy stepped into that role and I saw Stiddy literally become from a guy that barely spoke to a guy that was vocal and being a leader,” Jacobs said. “I was just like OK, let’s ride with him.”
But Jacobs started noticing things were off within the team well before December. In fact, he said it was the Week Nine loss to the Jaguars that was the biggest red flag signaling what was to come later in the season.
“I remember New Orleans beat us [the week before]. They beat us, they whooped us. Shout out to them,” Jacobs said, noting the Jacksonville game the next week was different. “We blew it. And that’s when I kind of knew. Because I was like, man, besides two games, every game that we’d lost, we lost by less than a touchdown. So I was like, clearly, we’re not figuring it out. Whatever it is we’re missing, we’re there, but we’re not there. We’re not close enough.
“That’s kind of when I was like, man, I don’t know how this season is about to go.”
It didn’t go well and now the Raiders are primed for some substantial changes heading into 2023. Jacobs, a pending free agent, may or may not be back after leading the league in rushing. But with a “weird” exit, Carr will certainly be moving on shortly.
