Four years later, Derek Carr is still opening up about how his Raiders run ended - and the most revealing part is what he wanted from Josh McDaniels in that final meeting.
Carr was informed on December 28, 2022, by McDaniels and then general manager Dave Ziegler that he would be benched. This week, Carr said on the Get Got podcast that he wanted one thing above all else: two more chances to play.
“I would have signed a waiver. I would have done anything just to say, ‘I don’t care about it just let me play these last two games.
I mean we’re two games away. You know, let me play these last two.
If we want to part ways, that’s fine. Just let me finish with all the work that I’ve put in with my guys.'”
Carr said on the Get Got podcast.
He also recalled McDaniels’ explanation for the move.
“And when I sat down with Josh [McDaniels] and he was like, ‘Look, we’re out of it. We have two games left.
We just want to see what we have in each other two. And I was like, ‘Guys, I understand that.
I don’t agree and I’m not down with that at all.”
Carr had touched on that conversation before, including in August, when he described asking, in effect, why the decision was being made.
“I was like ‘Why?’ and they were like ‘Honestly, we want to see what these two guys can do so we know what we have going into next year,”” Carr said in August of his conversation with McDaniels and Ziegler.
“And I said ‘Hey, That’s your decision. Ok.
Got it. I’m a grown man.
I’m not going to sit here and try to talk you out of a decision you want to make.’”
Carr has since said he and McDaniels are on good terms, but the partnership never clicked in Las Vegas. McDaniels also didn’t appear to be a fit across the locker room before his tenure with the Raiders ended on Halloween of 2023.
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