Sunday was a prototypical day for Derek Carr. Against a strong Bills’ defense, he completed a high percentage of his passes but rarely challenged the defense vertically. In fact, Carr threw just one pass beyond 20 yards all day despite having 44 passing attempts.
As you can see by his passing chart below via the NFL’s Next Gen Stats, Carr was efficient in the short to intermediate parts of the field. But the lack of deep passes makes creating chunk plays very difficult.
Here is Derek Carr's passing chart from Week 4: pic.twitter.com/wwuqfdH7NG
— Marcus Mosher (@Marcus_Mosher) October 5, 2020
Yesterday wasn’t entirely Carr’s fault as his top two receivers in Henry Ruggs III and Bryan Edwards missed the contest due to injuries. However, the team needs Carr to not only be more aggressive but to take care of the football better. He didn’t throw an interception on Sunday, but he did fumble once and could have lost another if it weren’t for a favorable whistle.
Up next for the Raiders are the Kansas City Chiefs. For the Raiders to stay above .500, they will need to pull off a massive upset in Kansas City. Carr will need to play much better in that contest than he did in Week 4 for the Raiders to have a chance of pulling off the win.
