What’s on mind of Raiders’ Derek Carr ahead of big game? His college coaches weigh in
.JPG "Las Vegas Raiders quarterback Derek Carr scrambles to the sidelines during an NFL game against the Indianapolis Colts, Sunday, Jan. 2, 2022, in Indianapolis.")
Pat Hill and Tim DeRuyter know a thing or two about how Derek Carr prepares for a game, including the biggest ones of his college career.
Even in a 2011 season that turned into a down year for Fresno State, Hill saw how Carr could rally his teammates. The quarterback then took it up a notch after DeRuyter became the Bulldogs coach.
Carr will be the man in the prime-time spotlight Sunday night as the Las Vegas Raiders face the Los Angeles Chargers to wrap up the NFL regular season. The winner is guaranteed a spot in the AFC playoff field.
“He’s a highly competitive young man,” Hill told The Bee on Friday. “He understands the stage he’s going to be on. He’s played on the stage many times. He’s had a lot of big games. This happens to be the biggest game this season, this week and so on and that’s how he has to approach it, and that’s how how he will approach it.”
DeRuyter, who took over after Hill as the Fresno State coach in 2012, said preparation and confidence have been two of Carr’s biggest strengths.
“He would spend as much time as I’ve ever seen a player watching film, being with other guys, being with Davante (Adams),” DeRuyter said of Carr’s main receiving target in those days. “Putting all the work in to prepare, and the other big thing is his confidence on the sideline. I think every time he took the field, he felt the offense was going to score and he was going to find a way to will them into the end zone.
“He just had an elite competitive nature in that way and an elite confidence.”
Many are saying this is Carr’s “make or break game,” one that defines not only this season but possibly his Raiders career. While that could be true, Hill doesn’t think it benefits a quarterback, or any player for that matter, to view games in quite that context.
“Sometimes you approach a game, like you said, ‘the biggest game of your career,’ sometimes that causes you to do things that you really shouldn’t need to do,” said Hill, who as the Bulldogs’ head coach (1997 to 2011) recruited Carr to Fresno State.
“Just do what you’re supposed to do and do your job to the best of your ability and the scoreboard will take care of itself. You can’t get hung up as this is the biggest game of his life, biggest game of his career. They’re all big games. This is just the biggest game of the week because next week will become bigger than this one.”
Carr is in his eighth season in the NFL — all with the Raiders. He has led the franchise to two winning seasons (12-4 in 2016 and 9-7 in 2021) but holds a 56-70 career record since he was selected by the team in the second round of the 2014 NFL draft.
Despite two major off-the-field distractions this season — the resignation of head coach Jon Gruden and the release of rising wide receiver prospect Henry Ruggs after his involvement in a suspected DUI crash that left a woman dead — Carr has kept the team together.
Las Vegas weathered a tough stretch that saw it lose five of six before winning three straight games to put the team in position for what would be its first playoff berth since 2016.
“He’s been able to keep them on track to get in the playoffs, which is a great tribute to him,” Hill said. “He’s a very competitive young man and he’s been in a lot of big games his entire life. He’s been around big-time football with his brother (former Fresno State and NFL quarterback David Carr) when he played. He’s been part of the Raiders organization for a long time and broken a lot of records there. He’s a very team-oriented guy and he’s going to do whatever he has with the tools he has to be successful.”
Said DeRuyter: “Derek is blessed with having an amount of optimism. He’s an optimistic person because of the work he puts in and because of the preparation. He expects good things to happen and that aura that he has about him, I think it bleeds into the team, and because of his confidence, the guys around him have confidence.”
Carr has teammates’ backing
Raiders defensive end Maxx Crosby has noticed a different demeanor in Carr as he pulled the team along during its late-season winning streak. Carr’s been getting help, as well, from an improving defense.
Even as the offense has sputtered at times, particularly during some painfully slow starts in games this season, Carr has recorded five game-winning drives, second in the NFL.
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Since entering the league, he has 29 game-winning drives. Carr has thrown for a career-high 4,618 yards this season, completing a career second-best 69% of his passes. He’s surpassed 20 touchdowns for the seventh time in his eight NFL seasons, has thrown for 31,514 yards and 191 TDs in his career, and holds most of the franchise’s single-season and all-time passing records.
But the lone playoff appearance, his below-.500 career winning percentage and this season’s 14 interceptions are among the factors that have some experts and fans questioning whether it’s time for the Raiders to go in a different direction at quarterback.
Crosby said there’s no reason to question Carr’s drive, particularly his desire to win. He knows Carr is hungry, particularly since Carr had to miss that most recent Raiders playoff appearance after a season-ending ankle injury.
“We talk about it all the time. He wants to win,” Crosby said. “Everybody wants to win. I know Derek, for sure. He’s been here eight years and he hasn’t been able to play in the playoffs, yet, Obviously the one year they made it, but he was hurt.
“I’ll talk about Derek all the time in the media and things like that. I can go over and over and say things about him, but he knows how I feel behind the scenes, because I have his back and he knows that.
“There’s nothing more than I want to see Derek Carr playing as our quarterback in the playoffs.”
Is Carr a clutch player? His late-game numbers this season certainly suggest so.
In the fourth quarter and overtime, Carr has thrown for 1,557 yards — the most in the NFL this season.
“DC, that’s my guy,” Raiders defensive end Yannick Ngakoue said. “He’s definitely ready for this. Just seeing over the course of these last couple weeks, just the confidence and the fire that I’ve seen from him. I love it tremendously. Just looking at the opening drives versus the Colts how he came out with the offense that were on fire. I’m super happy for him to be able to live in this moment and I know he’s going to get the job done.”
Hill recalls Carr’s rise
Fresno State was just 4-9 in Hill’s final season in 2011, but Carr — in his first year as the starter — was living up to his billing as a key recruit. He threw for 3,500-plus yards, Hill noted, even while making do with a still-rebuilding supporting cast.
Adams, the future star with the Green Bay Packers, took a redshirt year in Carr’s sophomore season.
Once the Bulldogs added Adams and others to a mix that included Isaiah Burse, Carr smashed school records during the next two seasons and under DeRuyter in 2013 led the Bulldogs to a Mountain West title.
“He didn’t have a great supporting cast (at first) because I was redshirting all those guys,” Hill said. “Then the next year when I left, they were all ready to play. He had a great cast and that year before when he didn’t have the guys around him, he still did an outstanding job. We didn’t win as many games because we didn’t have the supporting cast, but it doesn’t make any difference to him.
“He’s going to do what he has to do to make it right. He works in the framework of the game plan and I feel great about his chances on Sunday.”
Carr, similar to his early college days, has yet to enjoy an extended run with a true NFL No. 1 wide receiver. He had one for a short time in 2016 and 2017, but just as Amari Cooper broke out as a star he was traded to the Dallas Cowboys. Both Cooper and Michael Crabtree topped 1,000 yards in 2016, not so coincidentally a year that Carr threw for 28 TDs with just six interceptions and the Raiders made the playoffs.
Since that season, no Raiders wide receiver had topped the 1,000-yard mark in a season until Hunter Renfrow did so last week against the Colts. Renfrow has 1,025 receiving yards.
Tight end Darren Waller, who has been Carr’s top target the past two seasons, hasn’t played since the game against Dallas on Nov. 25 and remains questionable (back/knee) against the Chargers.
“Hunter Renfrow is outstanding,” Hill said. “That’s his go-to guy right now. He’s just going to do what he has to do with whoever is around him. That’s the way he’s always been.”
Message sticks with Carr
Hill has always preached, “keep grinding.” Carr alluded to that throughout this season, name-dropping Hill at news conferences along the way.
His ex-coach said he speaks to Carr every week and believes Carr will do just fine in the prime-time game.
“Do your job and just keep grinding,” said Hill, also a former NFL assistant. “But when you say the biggest game of his career, I don’t think he looks at it that way. Everybody else may look at it that way, but everybody puts those kinds of words all the time. Biggest game ever, biggest game, if you look at it that way it affects your play.
“You just got to do your job. I keep referring to doing your job. People don’t understand what that means. Doing your job is doing the best to your ability and understanding how your job affects everybody else’s. When you start getting in trouble, you start trying to force balls or you’re playing defense. Do your job, just don’t try to do too much.
“That’s what I learned from working with Bill Belichick for five years,” Hill said. “That is his key thing: just doing your job. Derek understands that concept. He is going to do what he needs to do to make it happen with the people around him. He never talks about injury, he never talks about who is in and who is out. He is going to do what he has to do within the game plan to make that thing go. That is going to be the key to this game. Everybody has to be on the same page and they will be and understand how big the game is and .... stay in your lane and do what you’re supposed to do.
“He’s all about the team. He’s a very team-oriented guy. He’s always been that way. If you’re going to have a football team, he’s a great guy to be under center, boy, I tell you what, I feel very, very comfortable with him under center. He’s going to do everything he can to help that team win.”
