5 potential landing spots for Raiders quarterback Derek Carr
4. Tampa Bay Buccaneers
On seemingly a weekly basis, the Buccaneers are either considering re-signing Jameis Winston or ready to consider other options at quarterback (Philip Rivers? Tom Brady?). This week’s narrative comes courtesy of head coach Bruce Arians during his availability at the NFL Combine.
Bruce Arians says he hasn’t made that decision on whether to use a tag on Jameis Winston. When will he know? “When we know who else is available. We should know by next week.”
— Rick Stroud (@NFLSTROUD) February 25, 2020
Theoretically, through back channels already in Indianapolis or previous levels of excused, look-the-other-way tampering, the Buccaneers know who else will be available to them. Rivers stands as an option until shown otherwise, as does Brady until further notice, with other free agents and the trade market to also flesh out.
Carr is not a substantial upgrade over Winston. But he does differentiate himself in one way–lack of interceptions. Over the last three seasons, Carr barely has more interceptions (31) than Winston had just last year (30). Differences in offensive style account for something, but Winston is notably erratic and loses multiple games per season with interceptions in bunches.
Despite Gruden drilling any downfield risk-taking out of him, Carr averaged 7.9 yards per attempt last year and seems to have enough arm strength to stretch the field in the offense Arians’ directs. With two upper tier wide receivers in place, a defense that could be quite good and the cap space to add talent this offseason, a stable quarterback like Carr might be what the doctor ordered in Tampa Bay by the time it’s all said and done.