Raiders QB Derek Carr (Photo by Jamie Schwaberow/Getty Images)
Derek Carr returns for his seventh season as the starting quarterback for the Las Vegas Raiders, and here are five reasons they can win with him in 2020.
For the last three offseason, all the noise surrounding the Raiders has been focused on quarterback Derek Carr, and whether or not he would return as the starter. Entering Year 7, he is in the best situation of his career, and this is a team that can certainly win with him under center.
Here are five reasons the Raiders can win with him as their starter in 2020.
Raiders have revamped the defensive side of the ball
Throughout his NFL career, Carr has been the quarterback of teams with some very bad defenses. In fact, even through the first two years of the second Jon Gruden tenure, the defenses have looked terrible at times, and while they made improvements in 2019, they were not competitive in most games.
Luckily for Carr, the defense should be much better in 2020, as the Raiders addressed all three levels of the defense, most importantly, at linebacker and cornerback. These have been two areas of weakness for the Raiders defense for years, and in guys like Cory Littleton, Nick Kwiatkoski, Damon Arnette, and Amik Robertson, the Raiders flat out got better.
Defense creates offense, and there have been too many times over the course of his career that Carr has had to bring his team back after a defensive failure. Defensive coordinator Paul Guenther is the Wildcard here, but if the guys play up to their potential, the Raiders offense should be in a much better situation in terms of where they start their drives.