Quarterback Derek Carr does not have the intention to play for the Raiders again.
Former Las Vegas Raiders quarterback Derek Carr always thinks to end his career with the team. He made up his mind to spend his whole career with the Raiders. In a press conference on June 15, 2021, he announced that he would “probably quit football” if he had to play with another team other than the Raiders.
However, everything changed when the quarterback has benched after the week 16 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers last season.
Derek Carr was not played the last two games of the season and was eventually released during the offseason. Recently in the last March, he was signed by the New Orleans Saints on a four-year contract worth $150 million. Carr has avoided getting too specific about where things went wrong with the Raiders last season, but he’s starting open up.
According to an interview with the Fresno Bee on June 26, Derek Carr opened up about how he felt following his benching.
“I was, for lack of a better term, I was very upset; I was mad,” Carr said. “You spend nine years in a place, you have all the records and you can play at a high level, and for something to get in the way, whether it was whatever reason, money related or whatever, injury-related, I would have said I don’t even want the money, just to play two more times in front of our fans. I didn’t get that opportunity. So it definitely lit a fire inside me to keep going.”
The Raiders didn’t have a succession plan at quarterback. Derek Carr also had no intentions of playing for the Raiders again and the only way he would’ve done it was to appease his teammates.
“Once they made my wife cry, that was pretty much over,” Carr said. “Once they made her cry, that was out. But the love for my teammates is what probably would have made me do it. But the way it worked out and the timing of things, I was just … it was time for me to move on. But who knows? You never know what will happen.”