The Oakland Raiders are off to a surprising 6-2 start and a large reason why is Derek Carr. A bunch of think pieces popped up this week pointing to other reasons, but it's being a little cute to deflect that success from Carr. The Raiders certainly aren't doing it.
They're more than willing to admit how good Carr has been since being drafted in the second round of the 2014 NFL Draft, and according to Adam Schefter of ESPN, they plan to put their money where their mouth is after this season.
That's when Carr will be eligible for a new contract under the CBA and Schefter hears the deal might "be Luck-ish."
That's a reference to the massive deal doled out by the Colts to Andrew Luck this offseason, paying the former No. 1 overall pick $140 million over six years.
Carr won't top Luck's deal, because he doesn't have the same pedigree. But the Raiders are going to give him a huge pile of cash as he blossoms into one of the better young quarterbacks in the game. CBS Sports NFL Insider Jason La Canfora reports that Carr will be paid if he keeps playing the way he is, but there has been no contact between both sides, who can't even talk until after the season.
"A source close to Carr said it's a little early to start speculating about what the quarterback's next contract might look like," La Canfora wrote in an email. " It's not even something he's begun thinking about."
Carr is far and away superior at this stage to the other quarterbacks in that draft class -- Blake Bortles, Teddy Bridgewater, Johnny Manziel -- and he keeps coming up big in large moments this season. He's completing 66.3 percent of his passes, averaging 290 yards per game and has 17 touchdowns to just three interceptions.
There's one more key component here: The Raiders have been drafting well in recent years and have Khalil Mack and Amari Cooper extensions on the horizon at some point.
Mack, also drafted in 2014, has a fifth-year option the Raiders will pick up. Cooper is in just his second season but already looks like a future star for a long time to come. The franchise tag is in play.
The logic of working on a deal for Carr now is you give him a big bump in terms of what he's making on the final year of his rookie deal, get his money out of the way, set yourself up from a cap-space perspective and free up the franchise tag for use in negotiations with the other budding stars on the roster.
It's also possible the Raiders would try to lowball Carr this offseason and get him to take a team-friendly deal when he's first available to negotiate. If Carr keeps playing the way he has through the first half of 2016, you can bank on him demanding the max amount available to him.
