Well, former Denver Broncos head coach and current Las Vegas Raiders head coach Josh McDaniels didn’t exactly trade Derek Carr before the 2022 season, so you’ve got to give him some credit for growth in that regard. Back in 2009, the Denver Broncos were on the cusp of being a playoff team and the team made the very difficult decision to move on from Mike Shanahan, hiring the wunderkind Josh McDaniels, offensive coordinator of the mighty New England Patriots, in his place.
At the time, McDaniels was the youngest head coach in the NFL at the age of 32 and was not only the head coach of the Broncos but also the de facto general manager. His first order of business, infamously, was to alienate Pro Bowl quarterback Jay Cutler and ultimately trade him to the Chicago Bears. McDaniels was an ego-maniacal power trip at the time, and you almost can’t blame him with the insane amount of success he had so rapidly as an NFL assistant.
Not only did McDaniels trade Jay Cutler, but over the course of two offseasons with the team, he would really go to great lengths to blow up the core the Broncos had in place and put his own stamp on the roster. Some of his moves were great (drafting Demaryius Thomas and Eric Decker) while others were nonsensical at best.
Now, almost 14 years later, we’re seeing him up to his old tricks as the head coach of the Raiders.
Raiders are benching Derek Carr and turning to Jarrett Stidham as their new starting QB.
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) December 28, 2022
Carr has thrown a league-leading 14 interceptions— including three Saturday night during a 13-10 loss to the Steelers.
Stidham has thrown only 61 passes and never has started an NFL game. pic.twitter.com/IJa1LfYGXT
The Raiders went out in the offseason after hiring Josh McDaniels and:
- Traded for WR Davante Adams
- Signed EDGE Chandler Jones
- Extended WR Hunter Renfrow
- Extended TE Darren Waller
- Extended QB Derek Carr
This team made massive moves, one after another. Now, the Raiders are benching Carr with just two games to play, and for what? To get a “look” at Jarrett Stidham, someone that McDaniels had while he was in New England?
This is garbage on the part of McDaniels. Pretty much everyone can see that it’s not Derek Carr who’s the problem in Las Vegas. Carr has brought the Raiders to the postseason multiple times despite constantly having a terrible defense behind him. He’s the reason the Raiders have arguably the best WR in the game under contract.
How are the Raiders a worse team now than they were last year with interim head coach Rich Bisaccia? The answer is simple. There’s a common denominator when you look at the situations in 2009-2010 in Denver and now 2022 in Las Vegas. His name is Josh McDaniels.
The man is simply not an NFL head coach. He’s great at scheming up an offense, but that’s the ceiling. We’ve seen it proven. It’s basically written in stone at this point. The guy simply can’t lead a team, and as much as we love to hate on Derek Carr as a rival of the Broncos, his being benched right now is lunacy on the part of McDaniels and the Raiders.
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Carr is probably going to be traded in the offseason and for some reason, Mark Davis is going to sign off on that. He’s going to go to another team like the Colts or Jets and actually help them win games. That’s ultimately good news for the Broncos that he will be out of the AFC West, but it’s further proof that McDaniels hasn’t changed a bit.