A closer look at Derek Carr’s career numbers and record shows his kryptonite remains the Kansas City Chiefs.
Let’s get one thing out of the way from the beginning: any Kansas City Chiefs fan with an IQ over 10 would trade any current quarterback on K.C.’s roster for Derek Carr. He’s just 26-years-old with a great arm, serious poise, considerable intelligence and a trajectory that says he’s going to be one of the elite quarterbacks of his generation when everything is said and done. He’s better than Alex Smith and Chiefs fans can only hope Patrick Mahomes begins to approach looking like Carr. He’s that good.
However, an interesting Pro Football Focus tweet showed that Carr’s dominance is limited when he faces his division rivals. It’s as if the Chiefs are his kryptonite, so to speak.
How Derek Carr fared against the AFC West in 2016: pic.twitter.com/sGyFAoJ01q
— PFF (@PFF) May 25, 2017
A closer look at the numbers shows that it’s even worse than that simple graphic above. In six career games versus the Chiefs, Carr’s career record is 1-5. His career completion percentage is 61%, but against the Chiefs he’s only at 55%, with 6 touchdowns and 5 interceptions against the Chiefs. Even David Carr would wince at those numbers.
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Even more, he’s not getting any better versus the team. The Raiders deserve a waiver for those first couple games considering the difference in overall talent level between the Chiefs and the Raiders. Yet even when the Raiders are red hot with a supposedly unstoppable offense, it turns out K.C. continues to do what they always do: outplay Derek Carr. In 2016, in the very last game against the Chiefs, Carr ended up with his worst performance yet, going 17 of 41 (yep that’s 41%) for 117 yards and 0 touchdowns.
Once again this offseason, the Raiders are earning all of the accolades. A young team with with an ascendant quarterback and several other solid young pieces, the Raiders are earning spots near the very top of offseason NFL Power Rankings, including a No. 2 overall spot from Peter King earlier this week. The Chiefs are at No. 8 on the same list. Clearly there’s a dominant belief that the Raiders are the better team.
But on the field, Oakland has yet to prove it. They’ve lost 5 straight to the Chiefs and K.C. swept the entire division last year, so it’s not just the Raiders. They did so without Jamaal Charles and Justin Houston for nearly the entire season, and of course that doesn’t include time lost by Derrick Johnson, Jeremy Maclin, Parker Ehinger, Allen Bailey, Jaye Howard, Josh Mauga and many more.
Carr is definitely a helluva quarterback, but it’s certainly fun to be on this side of the equation.