By Art Spander
NAPA — This was Al Davis talk, but from Derek Carr. Davis has been gone four and a half years now, and yet for the Raiders, for a player like Carr, it was as if Al still was parading around the field in training camp reminding us to just win, baby.
Carr wants nothing else, even in preseason games. “Anytime I put on a jersey,” said Carr, “my whole mindset is, ‘What do I need to do to win?’”
Most likely be on the field for more than a dozen plays, or something like that, to which most NFL starting quarterbacks are limited in the first or second week of what, in truth, are practice games.
No reason to take a chance with injuries, and conversely you’ve got to give a chance to the backups.
So for Carr, there’s impatience. Ten plays last weekend against Arizona, although with Matt McGloin throwing a couple of touchdown passes, an Oakland victory. Thursday night, it’s the Packers at Green Bay.
“There’s something where, like, if you lose,” said Carr, “it stings, because you’re a competitor.”
And unquestionably, in his third year, a leader — the leader. As a quarterback is supposed to be. Someone who understands the plan and people, and no less importantly himself. Someone as adept at dealing with the media as with a safety blitz.
The Raiders closed camp early Tuesday afternoon, not long after Carr, enthusiastic — as always — and reflective gave what would be the final session behind the podium for Napa 2016. And, according to some rumors, the final ever.
If the Oakland Raiders indeed are to become the Las Vegas Raiders, as Al’s son, Mark, is planning — scheming? — then, according to the predictions, training camp would be switched to Reno. Not that anyone associated with the Raiders would discuss it.
“Man, I’m just . . . I didn’t even think of that until you said that,” Carr offered. “That’s how focused we are on football. I love Napa. I love the Bay Area. If it is, I loved it. If it’s not, I look forward to coming back.”
It was the belief of the late Bill Walsh (whose first job in pro football was as an assistant to Davis in 1966, when Al was the Raiders' head coach) that a quarterback needs three years to develop: in the rookie year mostly watching, in the second year playing when he could succeed, in the third year becoming the starter.
Now rookies, such as Jared Goff with the Rams this season and Carr back in 2014, instantly are first-string, learning in the school of hard knocks and one-sided defeats. Peyton Manning himself endorsed the method with the man who succeeded him at Indianapolis, Andrew Luck.
“You’ve got to get out there and find out,” in effect is what Manning advised.
Carr definitely did. That first year, the Raiders lost their opening 10 games. For someone who prizes a win in preseason, the pain still lingers from the difficult beginning. Yet, Carr rarely gets down.
“Ninety-nine percent of the time,” he said of his attitude, “it’s real. It really is. I just love people, being around people. But there’s one percent of the time when you wake up and your body hurts or something bad happened with a friend or family member, and it bugs you. I’m human.”
But he recovers quickly enough.
“I just remind myself who I am,” said Carr, “my foundation, what I believe and who I am. That’s how I go about it, because I want to make sure I’m always the same for my teammates. Like when we were 0-10, it was hard. But I tried every single day to be the same guy. So, as they saw that when we were losing, when we started winning and I was the same guy, they knew it just wasn’t a game.”
He meant his behavior, not football, which is just a game — and more.
“When I came out of (Fresno State), I felt very prepared,” said Carr, “When I hit the NFL, there hasn’t been anything that was said to me that didn’t make sense. It’s all about experience, though. It’s just a matter of experiencing those things, those blitzes, those coverages.
“It made sense to me why they were doing it, but I had never seen it before so it wasn’t in my memory bank. Those two years of experience are what really gave me the most knowledge.”
We’ll find out whether, in his critical third year, they also give Carr the winning edge.