Raiders quarterback Derek Carr isn't the kind of guy who normally sends out angry tweets, but that's exactly what he did this week after being called out by ESPN's Max Kellerman.
During Wednesday's episode of ESPN's First Take, Carr's name came up during a discussion about who should be the Raiders quarterback of the future. Although Carr is signed through the 2022 season, the Raiders would only take a $7.5 million hit in dead cap space if they were to cut him this offseason. Now, the Raiders might not necessarily be looking for a new quarterback, but coach Jon Gruden was at the Senior Bowl this week gushing over Kyler Murray, which led Kellerman to say some pretty harsh things about Carr.
"Pretty obvious, Carr is not the the long term answer there," Kellerman said, via ESPN.com. "You could see that, especially the first half of the season. I mean, I stopped watching Carr a lot the second of the season, who cares about the Raiders second half? But the first half of the season, he looked shell-shocked. He looked like a quarterback who had quit."
Apparently, Carr wasn't too happy about being called a quitter, because he sent out a very interesting tweet to UFC president Dana White.
@ufc @danawhite hey how do I challenge a couple of these clowns on tv to a fight? I think we should start a business together. Where pro athletes can challenge some of these people to an octagon fight until they give us an answer.... You don’t know me... stop lying.
— Derek Carr (@derekcarrqb) January 23, 2019
That sounds like a fascinating business plan.
As for Kellerman, he actually ripped into Carr even more during the show.
"By the way, I've said this about Eli Manning, and even players who are great, you can see -- just like different players get called out for taking plays off -- you can see where a quarterback don't want it and Carr didn't want it," Kellerman said. "I think Gruden knows they got to move on and the question is can they get anything for [Carr]? Is he a placeholder until they can find the next guy? How long will it take to develop the next guy? And Kyler Murray, if you could grab him in the draft, hell yea.
Although Carr doesn't normally seem to send out angry tweets, he did it in this case because he was upset about the fact that his character got called into question.
Yes..say what you want but don’t question somebodies character as a man if you don’t know them. Our job as NFL athletes is to try and leave the game better for the next generations. So let’s start an octagon business to give some accountability to these kinds of people. 😉😂👊🏼
— Derek Carr (@derekcarrqb) January 23, 2019
If the UFC idea doesn't work out, it sounds like Carr would also be willing to take a less violent route, which would involve watching film with Kellerman.
😂it’s because I blocked them both for talking trash about our team. Those 2 clowns don’t know anything about this game. Would love to actually sit and break down film with these two on tv just to show their viewers how incompetent (lacking qualification) they are about our game.
— Derek Carr (@derekcarrqb) January 23, 2019
The offseason hasn't even officially started and we're already getting quarterbacks challenging TV hosts to fights. If this is any indication of what the rest of the offseason is going to be like, we're going to be in for a long eight months.
Oh, and if you are interested in who the Raiders might draft, make sure to click here and check out our multiple mock drafts here at CBSSports.com. If you do click, you will notice that neither Ryan Wilson or Chris Trapasso have the Raiders taking a quarterback in the first round with any of their three picks.
