Raiders QB Derek Carr has played well over the first four weeks of the 2021 campaign, throwing for nearly 350 yards per game and eight touchdowns against three interceptions while completing over 64% of his passes. Despite the success, Carr will not be discussing a contract extension during the season, as Adam Schefter of ESPN.com reports.
In 2017, Carr inked a five-year, $125MM contract that made him the highest-paid player in the league at the time. Now, however, his $25MM AAV is the 14th-highest mark among quarterbacks, which is one of the reasons why his name continues to crop up in trade rumors. He is signed through the 2022 season.
As Schefter notes, Carr never intended to talk contract during the year, instead preferring to wait until the upcoming offseason. So it’s not as if this represents a change in thinking for Carr, who remains committed to staying with the Raiders for his entire career.
“I’d probably quit football if I had to play for somebody else,” Carr said this summer. “I am a Raider for my entire life. I’m going to root for one team for the rest of my life — it’s the Raiders. So, I just feel that so strong in my heart I don’t need a perfect situation … to make things right. I’d rather go down with the ship, you know what I’m saying, if I have to.”
The Raiders themselves are perfectly content to wait until the offseason as well. Las Vegas is right up against the salary cap at the moment, and while a Carr extension could reduce his 2021 cap number, the club will have more money to spend in 2022 as a result of the cash influx it has realized as a result of the move to Sin City. The salary cap is also expected to increase over the next several years, so it shouldn’t be too difficult to fit a new contract for Carr on the books, even if it will be considerably more valuable than his current one.
Carr’s comeback attempt against the Chargers last week fell a bit short, but the Raiders are still 3-1 and will get a chance to improve on that mark at home against the Bears this afternoon. If Carr can lead his club to a playoff berth in a loaded AFC West, he will have a particularly strong case for a contract in the $40MM/year ballpark.
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