Chargers Bosa and Raiders Carr Say Trash Talking All Respect
As the NFL season hits the last weekend of regular season football, the headline game will be the Chargers visiting the Raiders in a "win, and you're in" scenario. One headline dominates the rest: Joey Bosa and Derek Carr trash talk from week four.
The last time these two teams faced off, the Chargers got out to a 21-point lead and held it down to win 28-14. The impressive part of the matchup was the Chargers constant pressure on Carr. They sacked him four times and hit him seven times.
After the game, Bosa was fired up by a bad roughing the passer call that led him to rant about the officials. He was also ecstatic about the win and how his defense got after Carr.
"We knew once we hit him a few times, he really gets shook," Bosa said about Carr after the game. "Great dude, great player, but we know once you get pressure on him, he kind of shuts down."
Those comments would obviously come back as these two teams face off in the most crucial game of the season.
"He's one of the best in the world," Carr said Wednesday. "And it's the nature of the defensive line position to be aggressive. And that's how he is. I haven't talked to him. I'll always talk to him during the game. I'll probably trash talk with him more. But I think the world of Joey."
Bosa was asked about the situation on Thursday.
"I'm a fan of him," Bosa said. "I think we get along. I was just pointing out something that I noticed when he gets pressured, he seems to shut down a little bit. Seems like a lot of quarterbacks do that."
There is mutual respect until they hit the field, and the jaws start running like last weekend when Broncos quarterback Drew Lock had a trash-talking incident with Bosa.
The Broncos faced a first-and-ten on the Chargers 17-yard line. Lock comes to the line, points at Bosa, and says, "he is tired."
"Which, I mean, I was extremely tired," Bosa recalled. "It was a good point because I was standing there like this [with my hands on my hips]. When he said that, I got in a three-point stance, and I said, 'Run it at me, then. Come on, run it at me.'"
Lock hands the ball off to Melvin Gordon, and Bosa comes through the line to have a big tackle for loss.
Bosa did say something to Lock but kept it PG on Thursday.
"Then, I was like, 'Who's tired?' As I ran off the field and needed a break," Bosa said. "I was pretty tired, but it worked out. It worked out well."
Someone who was right there was defensive tackle Justin Jones, and even he said something to the Broncos quarterback.
"If you poke a bear, you're going to get mauled," Jones said. "That's what that is. If I was him, I wouldn't have done that."
Bosa has this energy to him when he plays angry. Last season, when the Chargers faced the Buffalo Bills week 12, there was a lot of trash-talking between the offensive line and Bosa. He recovered a fumble and yelled at one of their tight ends for jumping on the pile after he had recovered the ball.
The Ohio State product had eight tackles, six for loss, three sacks, one pass deflection, and one fumble recovery. Sometimes the trash-talking fuels him.
A couple of plays after the fumble recovery, Bills tight end Lee Smith and Bosa apologized to each other.
"I turn into a different guy when I am mad," Bosa admitted to Smith.
When Bosa is fired up, it seems like the defense steps it up. They stepped up the first time they played the Raiders earlier this season when they held Josh Jacobs to 40 yards rushing, Carr to 196 passing yards, and Darren Waller to 50 receiving yards.
The defense stepped up against the Broncos last Sunday also. They only hit Lock three times and sacked him once, but they consistently pressured him.
"Joey loves a challenge," Jones explained. "He loves a challenge from anybody. If anyone challenges him, he's not backing down. That's what I love about him. He's got that fiery energy in him, and that's contagious through our whole line through the whole front, through the whole front, [middle] and the back. Everybody feels it."
Bosa is in his third defensive system as a pro. As the other two times, Bosa has the system down. He has 9.5 sacks with six forced fumbles along with 49 tackles on the season.
He has been a big part of the defensive scheme that Brandon Staley and Renaldo Hill have implemented with the Chargers. It relies heavily on the big-time play of Bosa with safety Derwin James.
"What I want is for Joey to play well all of the time, regardless of the circumstances," Staley explained. "I think that, as a competitor, there's always going to be that time where something happens to trigger you, trigger your intensity a little bit. That happens, that's natural, it's part of competition. If that elevates his performance, then I'm glad because that's what great competitors do — when someone elevates that level of intensity, then you respond to it. I think that you have to be willing to go nose-to-nose with that reality. If that's the truth with Joey, then I'm excited about that."
This weekend, the Chargers will need Bosa to turn into the Incredible Hulk because of how big the game is against the Raiders.
For Bosa and Carr, this is water under the bridge.
"I think he's a good dude, good player," Carr said. "But honestly, that stuff is so old, and I've been just through too much to even care, to be honest. Let alone in my career, just even this year."
Each team will need their guy to take it to the next level for their team to advance to the postseason.
"I wouldn't like somebody who plants their shoulder into me for a living, so I don't see how he would really like me," Bosa said. "I wouldn't if I was him, but I think we both have respect for each other & always like competing against each other."
