Las Vegas Raiders Derek Carr Week 10 Update

HENDERSON, Nev.--The Las Vegas Raiders find themselves entering their week nine tilt against the Indianapolis Colts with a disappointing 2-6 record. Let there be no doubt, no one in this organization can allow the Silver and Black to garner another loss this weekend.

The Silver and Black's Derek Carr spoke about his team and moving forward.

You can watch the entire press conference below, and read the transcript:

Quarterback Derek Carr

Q: When you look at the numbers since you've come into the league, you've always been high up. It's obviously learning a new system "X" amount of times over your career. This year there's a little bit of a digression. Is it still learning the system? Is it complications every week? How do you explain your numbers in particular and then mixing in with your guys?

QB Derek Carr: "I mean, a lot of it goes into it. There's years that I played better football with worse numbers and all that kind of stuff. So the number part isn't really the thing that we look at, it's just the efficiency of how you're running the offense. So, moving the ball, scoring points, taking care of the football, all those things. Like I said, it takes everybody, but I'm just working on trying to be better. And I've had good numbers first half of a season, bad numbers, all that kind of stuff, it really doesn't matter until the end anyway. You try and win football games and see where that leads us. Again, for me, I'm just trying to be better myself and those things can land where they want. I just want to make sure I'm playing good enough to where we can win more football games."

Q: How difficult is your job as a leader at quarterback to remind everybody like, "I know it hasn't been what we wanted, but there's a game this Sunday, there's a game next week." Not looking ahead or looking back and just stay focused when obviously it's not going the way you guys want it to?

Carr: "We were talking about that today, like a couple of us - especially me and Tae [Davante Adams] - how when you're in this league, it's almost been a decade, we're sitting here and we're the older guys that guys are looking at. It's okay to be upset, and it's okay to be angry on Monday and Tuesday. it's okay to feel some type of way, but come Wednesday you learn very quickly that this league, it changes like that. And so you have to be able to get ready and show your teammates that you're ready to go for that day. That's something that we were literally talking about today, bringing our energy, bringing our leadership, showing the young guys. And we've got a lot of veteran guys that have been doing it for a while and have been through good times, hard times, all that, and we just know how long of a year it is. We haven't even played half our games yet. It's such a long season, and we're looking forward to just trying to get better and leading our guys this week to try and get a win this week."

Q: Along those same lines, you said there were some things that needed to be addressed after Sunday. Davante Adams had some pointed criticism, things he wanted to fix. Now that you've had Monday, you've looked at the film, you've had those couple angry days, as you described it, do you feel like you guys are more unified now that some of those things have been addressed?

Carr: "Yeah absolutely, and Josh [McDaniels] is really good at pointing them out. Sometimes he points stuff out that we don't even have to bring up, it's addressed in the team room. And really the main focus was for each man to look at themselves and just say, 'What could you have done better in that game?' And if you're honest with yourself, hopefully you come out here and do that. I always talk about, it's one thing to say it and say, 'Yes sir,' but then you've got to go do it. So, it'll be fun to watch that practice film right now and see what that looks like."

Q: The big conversation obviously after Sunday was three 17-point leads, then you see the moves that have been made, Johnathan [Abram] gets let go. It's too easy to say it's on the defense. Do you take it personal is a captain, especially the veteran quarterback, when the defense is catching a lot of the blame for this?

Carr: "Absolutely. I don't remember what year it was, but we were doing some good things offense and everyone just kept talking about the defense, and I was like, 'This is a team game. It's not just all on them. If we turn the ball over and give them the ball at midfield every time, it's really hard to play defense that way. Or if we don't get a first down when we're backed up, we're making it a shorter field, we're making it hard.' It's such a team game. Fantasy football has turned it into, 'Well, they didn't give me my points, so it must be that fault.' Football is a team football game, and it will always be that. The best teams usually win the games, and whenever you play the most consistent three aspects of football, those are usually the teams that win. So for us, each room is looking at it like what can we do, taking responsibility. It's never finger pointing. As soon as you point fingers, that's when everything just goes to crap."

Q: What are the challenges of going against a defensive coordinator that used to be with the Raiders and knows you and some of the other personnel so well on the offensive side?

Carr: "I mean Gus [Bradley], one he is a great. I love him so much. I love Gus, and he's one of the greatest coaches I've ever been around just from a mindset standpoint. He's the same guy every day, and you're like, 'Can he really be that way every day?' And he is. So, being around him every day, he knows some of how we're wired, what makes us go and all those things. He was around a lot of us. But we're a completely different system now too. It works both ways, too. Like, we know things about him, but he knows that too, so it's a chess game. I'm sure he'll have things for that and all that kind of stuff. I'll be looking forward to playing against him, but out of all the coaches I've ever been around, I love that man so much. So to compete against him and to try and go after their defense and compete - they're one of the top defenses in the league, so it'd be it'll be fun to go against him, but it'll be a chess match for sure."

Q: Derek you've played for head coaches that haven't called plays as well as head coaches that have. What are the differences in those two dynamics?

Carr: "There's big differences. When the head coach is calling them, the philosophy, there's only one voice. When someone else is calling them, you've got two voices and you hope in your organization that the voices align, right. 'Hey, it's this situation. I want the ball to do this. Or I'm looking for this, or I want this to happen.' And when those voices are in sync, those are usually good things. So when the head coach has calling the plays it's easier for me, because whatever he's saying, like there's no getting in trouble because he's the boss."

Q: This season has been very interesting for both sides of the ball, because obviously you guys are doing some successful things, but it doesn't reflect in the record. How much desire do you have to show for rest of the season that this team is better than the record?

Carr: "We feel that way, but like I said, we haven't earned it. But we definitely feel that way. We've been able to move the ball a lot, score points and do certain things, run it when we need to, throw it if we've got to throw it in games, all that kind of stuff. We've shown it at times, but the consistency - if we don't do it consistently, it's not going to end how we want it to. It's like we see basketball players, baseball players, football players with all this talent sometimes, but unless all the things are clicking all at once, the results aren't what you want. So we can have all the talent and show it in spurts. but if we don't do it consistently, it's not going to be what we want it to be. So yeah, I mean we are competitive people. We are looking forward to making sure that we can show, really to ourselves, that if we do things the right way and play the game the right way that we can win football games and win them at a high level."

Q: When you have a guy like Gus Bradley that you're going to face and you kind of can think, 'Well, there's a lot of cover three there,' and then with somebody like Yannick [Ngakoue] you kind of know tendencies that you'll be facing against - how does that help you prepare?

Carr: "I'll say this first [Yannick Ngakoue] - he was one of my favorite teammates I've ever had, so when he left that broke my heart. That hurt because we were so close, our leaders on the team and all that. I know he'll be fired up to play us, obviously. Being there with Gus [Bradley], he has a familiar faces, [Brandon] Facyson is over there, too and there's some guys. But for us, you've been around them and all that kind of stuff, but when you show up on Sunday, you've still got to compete, it's football. You got to go. We've got guys on this team that haven't been around those guys either. So for us, we're a different scheme, they're in different places with some different people and all that kind of stuff. Sure, there may be some similarities here and there that we may see or may know, but at the end of the day, we won't know until game day what the plan really is."

Q: You mentioned a lot of guys around here have seen a lot of different things. You've been through a lot of different things. Davante [Adams] really hasn't been through a season like this. Not to speak for him, how do you feel that he's kind of handling going through a season like this?

Carr: "I mean, we've had some fun conversations, because he's now seeing some things when he hasn't had many coaching changes, he hasn't had many systems to learn. And now he's seeing what happens when you have to do that, and when you have to do it many times. So he's seeing that, but we still feel like we've been productive. We've been doing some nice things, but we feel like we were getting better. Last week, we took another step in the right direction. But I think from overall standpoint, his patience level, he's used to being in the same system, same guys, almost the same roster every year, and he's learning that when you come to new place with new coaches, the roster is going to change, the scheme is going to change, all that kind of stuff. So, his patience level has been great, and he understands, we all understand. I wish I didn't understand, but we all understand that it takes time, but we're hoping that time doesn't take much longer, that we can get it together now. Because we know what to do, but all 11 have to do it right at once, and if we can do that, I'm confident that going forward we can finish the year how we want to finish it."

The Raiders return to home Allegiant Stadium next Sunday to take on the Indianapolis Colts. That game kicks off at 4:05 EST and 1:05 PST, and it can be seen on CBS.

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