The Raiders are probably going to wind up cutting Derek Carr. If Carr is on the Raiders’ roster Wednesday, his $32.9 million base for next year, and $7.5 million of his money for 2024 becomes guaranteed. So he’ll be off the Las Vegas roster (effectively, at least) by 4 p.m. ET on Tuesday, the deadline for transactions to be processed that day.
Sometimes, deadlines spur deals. Don’t count on that in this case.
The Raiders have had five weeks to find a trade partner. At the very start, they established that a team would have to agree to trade parameters with them to get permission to talk to Carr. Thus far, one such team, the Saints, has gotten permission. And from there, the Saints had to agree to a revised contract, and Carr had to agree to waive his no-trade clause, and obviously those things didn’t happen. I’m told the Saints’ offer was the only one Vegas got.
At this point, Carr would have to be willing to give up free agency in mid-February, a month ahead of everyone else, to take less than what’s on his contract. And another team would have to be willing to give up a draft pick to get him, knowing he’d be cut Tuesday after showing little interest until now. The only way the Raiders had a chance was if Carr was willing to take a pay cut knowing he wasn’t getting close to what he has on his contract on the open market, and if a team didn’t want to compete for him with other teams on said market.
The chances of that happening were always slim, and they’re basically none now. So my guess is the Raiders will cut Carr, maybe Monday, maybe Tuesday, and the Saints and Jets (the only other team to inquire with the Raiders on him) will look into signing him later in the week.
That last part is tricky, though, because of the uncertainty of Aaron Rodgers’s status. Right now, Rodgers’s plans remain up in the air, and because of that, the market for Carr could be weighed down a little by teams that might figure that staying alive for Rodgers is better than signing Carr.
If you’re the Jets, do you go all in on Carr? Or do you wait for Rodgers? Those are the questions, and as we’ve written in this space before, the Jets, buoyed by owner Woody Johnson’s feeling that the team is getting closer to being a real contender, are planning to take the big swing, so I’d be surprised (even though they did talk to the Raiders about Carr) if they settled for the double now with a chance to hit a home run later.
As for the Packers, they are where they’ve been on this, and they’ll be good either way. If Rodgers says he wants to do another year in Green Bay, they’ll likely lock in for that. If he wants to be traded, they’ll work to accommodate that, with a natural turning of the page for them, with a decision on Jordan Love’s fifth-year option due in May.
That makes this a materially different situation than the past two offseasons, with a real chance Rodgers will be wearing another uniform next year. And if you want to know whether the league still thinks he can play, well, then a tepid market for Carr this week might be an indicator for you that teams are willing to wait for him.
