Derek Carr reiterates he ‘only wanted to be a Raider’ after extension

By Case Keefer (contact)

Published Wednesday, April 13, 2022 | 9:02 a.m.

Updated Wednesday, April 13, 2022 | 1:12 p.m.

With his wife and three sons sitting in first-row seats while his 1-year-old daughter climbed around the front of the room cooing, Derek Carr announced a long-awaited three-year contract extension with the Raiders Wednesday afternoon at the team’s Henderson headquarters.

Family was a recurring theme of why the 31-year-old veteran said he wanted to stay in Las Vegas and add to his status as the AFC’s longest-tenured quarterback.

“I’ve only wanted to be a Raider,” Carr said. “I told my agent I either want to be a Raider or I’m going to be playing golf. I don’t want to play anywhere else. That’s how much this place means to me. I know I don’t get really fired up talking about it or anything, but I hope people can hear it in my heart.”

The new deal includes a no-trade clause and is worth a total of $121.5 million. Carr had one year left on his current contract — a five-year, $125 million deal signed in 2017 — so the extension means he will be in Las Vegas through the 2025 season.

Carr, who came out of Fresno State, already holds almost all of the franchise’s passing records after eight seasons in silver and black and will now have the chance to pad his lead.

“You see people want to get out and leave places all the time because it’s too hard, not the right situation and all that stuff,” Carr said. “More power to them, but there’s something about this place where I was just like, ‘I’ll do whatever it takes to be here.’”

Carr sits squarely inside the top 10 highest-paid quarterbacks in the NFL — fifth if including only the three new years tacked on his contract — but described the deal as a team-friendly on Wednesday. Exact contract details were not made immediately available, but Carr said it’s structured so that the Raiders can continue to keep their surrounding core in place as well as potentially add more talent.

Perhaps that means a significant portion of his salary will come via signing bonus or the contract has a backloaded structure. Carr said he learned that team flexibility was important from his experience after signing his last deal.

That contract was one of the factors that hamstrung the team financially and led them to trading former Defensive Player of the Year Khalil Mack to the Chicago Bears. The Raiders have already doled out big deals to the likes of wide receiver Davante Adams, edge rusher Maxx Crosby and edge rusher Chandler Jones this offseason, with several more decisions looming.

Long-term choices on the likes of wide receiver Hunter Renfrow, tight end Darren Waller and running back Josh Jacobs are imminent.

“This was an opportunity to prove to the team, to the organization, the fans that the way we’re going to structure this is so everybody can stay together and have real continuity, really have something to build on,” Carr said.

The Raiders came into the offseason with plenty of options on how to proceed with the veteran quarterback under new general manager Dave Zielger and new coach Josh McDaniels. High-profile passers rarely, if ever, play with one year remaining on their contract, though Carr said Wednesday he was “crazy enough” to do it if that was the only way he could have stayed with the Raiders.

He wasn’t interested in any potential trade, though several teams reportedly inquired for the second straight year in an offseason that produced a flurry of quarterback movement around the league. Those possibilities ceased once the Raiders made a blockbuster trade with the Green Bay Packers for Adams.

The arrival of the 29-year-old, five-time Pro Bowl receiver ensured Carr would be sticking around too. The two are “best friends” dating back to their time at Fresno State, and playing with Carr was one of the main draws in luring Adams to Las Vegas.

“We put together a pretty good resume together,” Adams said in his introductory news conference last month. “This ain't college, but we still got that connection so looking forward to putting it on display.”

Carr and Adams have started throwing together informally over the last few weeks, with the quarterback saying Wednesday that the receiver “is so freakishly talented, he makes me look better than I am.”

Detractors will bank on that being the case as Carr has been a polarizing figure with the Raiders. His statistics, including a career 31,700 passing yards with 193 touchdowns and a 65% completion, stack up with all but the very best quarterbacks in the league but his overall record, 57-70 as a starter, does not.

Carr has led the Raiders to the playoffs twice, last season and in 2016 when he was unable to play because of injury, but the franchise hasn’t won a postseason game since 2002. They fell to the Cincinnati Bengals 26-19 in last season’s wild-card round.

“For me, the question of ‘Can I win a playoff game?,’ that’s ridiculous,” Carr said. “Yes. Just because we haven’t — we had one chance and we lost in the last series of the game to the AFC champions. I think we can. It just shows you how close we were.”

The quarterback’s defenders argue the lack of postseason success is more of an indictment of the surrounding talent than Carr himself. Either way, Carr will eventually need to break through in the playoffs to receive the credit he believes he’s earned.

With the new extension, he’ll have at least four more chances to do so with the only team he says he’s willing to play for.

“It’s been crazy, this journey,” Carr said. “We feel like in the last couple years we’ve been heading in the right direction and, for me, it says so much about a lot of things. It’s a lot of coaches you have to prove it to, a lot of GMs you have to prove it to. There’s been a lot of different players you play with and to be able to still be here, it means something to me, because I understand if someone came in and they wanted someone new. I get it, but the fact that they keep believing in me and watching the tape and saying, ‘Wow, we want you to be here for some more time,’ that means way more to me than any of the other stuff.”

Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or