Las Vegas Raiders’ QB Derek Carr has been benched for the remainder of the 2022 NFL season by head coach Josh McDaniels as the team stands 6-9 and is still in the playoff hunt.
McDaniels announced Wednesday that Carr would miss the rest of the season due to what he called offensive performance reasons and that Jarrett Stidham would start instead, the Guardian reported.
“I don’t think anybody feels like we’ve done enough offensively certainly in a couple of these games,” McDaniels shared. “We couldn’t put enough points on the board, so I don’t think anybody’s really happy with what we’ve done.”
“We’re all accountable to where we’re at, and I think this (decision) is more about an opportunity to see a guy that we haven’t seen play in a situation like this against a couple of good teams, really good teams,” he added. “Derek’s played a lot of football. There’s a lot of evaluating that’s going to take place here in terms of once the season’s over in terms of how we made the most progress, what makes the most sense for everybody, how to move forward.”
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“We knew that was going to be the case,” the coach continued. “Obviously, we were hoping to be in a different scenario than we are currently, but there’s no decision made. There’s no finality to today. This is the decision we thought after talking about it and contemplating. It would be an opportunity for us to see what we have in [Stidham].”
Carr has been the Raiders’ starting QB since 2014 and has only missed three games in nine seasons due to injury, the outlet noted.
A source told ESPN that the QB agreed to step away from the team for the remainder of the season.
“The two sides talked about it and thought it was best,” the source shared.
The Raiders’ acquired Stidham from the New England Patriots in an offseason trade. McDaniels previously was the Patriots’ offensive coordinator. Stidham will start against the San Francisco 49ers on Sunday at Allegiant Stadium, with Chase Garbers as backup.
In this offseason, Carr signed a three-year, $121.5 million contract extension, ESPN noted.