NFL1000: Is Derek Carr the NFL's Next Great Quarterback?

On Sunday afternoon, the Oakland Raiders set an NFL record with 23 penalties for 200 yards. They beat the Tampa Bay Buccaneers 30-24 in overtime despite that ignominious mark, pushing their record to 6-2, in part because third-year quarterback Derek Carr set a franchise record with 513 passing yards, completing 40 of 59 attempts for four touchdowns and no interceptions.

It's a performance that put Carr above all the Raiders greats at the position—everyone from Daryle Lamonica to Ken Stabler to Jim Plunkett to Rich Gannon—at least in that one stat column, and it has people asking if it's time to rank Carr as one of the handful of best quarterbacks in the league.

Certainly, he's no one-game wonder. On the season, Carr has completed 66.3 percent of his passes (214 of 323) for 2,321 yards and 17 touchdowns against three interceptions. That puts him on pace for MVP-level numbers: 428 completions in 646 attempts for 4,642 yards and 34 touchdowns and only six picks.

Carr ranks third in Pro Football Focus' quarterback ratings behind Drew Brees and Matt Ryan, fourth in traditional quarterback rating behind Ryan, Brees and Matthew Stafford, and entered Sunday sixth in Football Outsiders' season-cumulative metric and eighth in FO's play-to-play numbers. One would assume those last two figures will take a tick up after Carr's performance against the Bucs.

Accuracy	Arm	Pressure	Decisions	Position	Overall
18/25	23/25	14/20	14/20	10/10	79/100

Carr has come a long way since he came into the league out of Fresno State in the second round of the 2014 draft—the same draft class that gave us Blake Bortles, Johnny Manziel and Teddy Bridgewater, all of whom were selected before Carr.

Bortles is trying to work things out with a performance coach, Manziel will most likely never see the NFL again after an avalanche of off-field issues and Bridgewater is out for at least the rest of the season after he suffered a gruesome knee injury in late August.

Carr is the lone 2014 quarterback draftee with a clear path to success, and he's on a team with a general manager in Reggie McKenzie who's done a lot of great work to surround Carr with estimable talent.

Carr has had two offensive coordinators: Greg Olson in his rookie season and Bill Musgrave for the last two seasons. Musgrave is known for creating quarterback-friendly situations, and he's done that in Oakland. The Raiders present everything from multi-tight end power formations to five-wide sets, and Carr handles it all.

Jeff Chiu/Associated Press

"The familiarity is important," Musgrave said in August of Carr returning to the same offense, per CSNBayArea.com's Scott Bair. "He doesn't have to learn a new language, and he's been around the block once before. He's able to take it to the next level, to take it to the graduate level from undergrad, where he was last year.

"He can put his spin on things and solve his own problems almost before the problems emerge at the line of scrimmage."

True, but Musgrave has also installed a ton of first-read options—specifically short passes—that allow Carr to avoid reading the field on every play and keep him out of pressure situations to a large degree. The route concepts have opened up over time, and Carr's deep passing has done the same.

In his rookie year, per Pro Football Focus, he completed just 15 of 71 passes over 20 yards in the air for 565 yards and two touchdowns with two interceptions. His 23.9 percent accuracy rate on such throws was by far the worst among quarterbacks who took at least 50 percent of their team's snaps—for perspective, Ryan led the league that year with a 56.5 percent hit rate.

Last season, Carr completed 25 of 66 deep passes for 831 yards and 12 touchdowns with four interceptions, and through eight games this season, he's completed 14 of 27 deep passes for 469 yards and five touchdowns with one interception. And when he's got one of his receivers one-on-one with an overmatched defensive back, Carr knows how to let it loose with good accuracy.

This 34-yard touchdown pass to Amari Cooper in the third quarter of Sunday's game was a great example. Cooper beat safety Chris Conte deep, Carr flicked the ball accurately with good mechanics and Cooper made a nice over-the-shoulder catch. What Conte was doing covering Cooper one-on-one is another matter, but you can see cornerback Brent Grimes having a bit of a brain freeze on that side of the field.

This 68-yard pass to fullback Jamize Olawale in the second quarter was a fine example of a route concept that bedeviled a subpar defense and Carr being in sync with the plan. Receiver Seth Roberts and tight end Clive Walford cleared out the coverage at the line, allowing Olawale to run his route out of the backfield with minimal coverage and a blocker upfield, and running back Taiwan Jones drew the defense in a bit with a screen look. It was a killer call by Musgrave. Olawale just trucked ahead, and once again, Conte was the odd man out.

Oakland receivers posted 270 yards after the catch in this game, per the Elias Sports Bureau (via First Take on Twitter)—the most any Raiders team had put up in a decade. Musgrave's play designs, and the ways in which they allow Carr to find easy openings, comprise a big part of the team's success.

There are enough big plays and big stats to make you want to put Carr in the top tier of NFL quarterbacks. I have no doubt he's well on his way there. But I fall just short of crowning him, so to speak, when I see repeated instances of plays in which he can't quite take the bat off his shoulder and define plays outside of the system.

That's not a pejorative statement—you'd expect and want a third-year quarterback to respect and adhere to the system, and Carr does that. But when he plays a better defense with more complex coverages, there are issues to iron out.

We saw this most prominently when the Raiders faced the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 6. Kansas City defensive coordinator Bob Sutton has the horses to put one of the league's best defenses on the field, but he's also a master of blitz looks and changing coverages pre-snap.

The 26-10 loss was Oakland's only blowout backslide this season (they lost 35-28 to the Atlanta Falcons in Week 2), and it was Carr's worst game. He completed 22 of 34 passes for just 225 yards and one touchdown with one interception. We'll start with the interception to cornerback Marcus Peters as an example.

Roberts motioned inside Michael Crabtree pre-snap, and pre-snap motion is one way of showing what coverages an opposing defense is playing. In this case, Peters—who was originally outside on Roberts—switched his responsibility to Crabtree, with slot cornerback Steven Nelson taking Roberts on a quick out route. Peters followed Crabtree on a stutter-go up the seam, and Carr was pressured as he wanted to step up in the pocket.

He didn't reset his body for the throw. Instead, he rolled right and threw an air ball with weird mechanics on his front foot and away from his forward momentum. The resulting interception looked more like an arm punt than a legitimate throw, and Peters had all the time in the world to pick it off because Crabtree fell down.

It's not that Carr has a problem in this regard—PFF has him as the quarterback with the league's highest passer rating under pressure. It's rather that I'd like to see him adjust more when things break down, as opposed to trying to hit predetermined reads no matter what.

This second-quarter incompletion intended for Roberts against the Chiefs was one of the plays that amplifies my concerns. It was 4th-and-5, and we all know Raiders head coach Jack Del Rio loves to go for it on fourth down. So, here we go.

Roberts was the middle receiver in a trips left formation, and he took Nelson out to the boundary while Crabtree brought outside cornerback D.J. White inside and won. Carr had Crabtree for a first down if he wanted it, but he released the ball to Roberts before Crabtree even broke into his inside route. The subsequent out-of-bounds throw spoke to a possible route miscommunication, but it was curious that Carr didn't wait until he saw what Crabtree was going to do over the middle before making the call.

Nothing shown above is a fatal flaw—most likely, Carr just has to build confidence in what he sees and get to the point where he thinks less and reacts naturally more. One thing's for sure: The defenses he faces are about to get far more difficult. In Oakland's first eight games, only the Chiefs presented a serious challenge. In the second half of the season, there will be the Denver Broncos to deal with twice, a Buffalo Bills defense with all kinds of odd pressure looks, a markedly improving San Diego Chargers unit and a Carolina Panthers defense that can still bring it with its front seven.

Based on what he told reporters Sunday, Carr seems ready for that challenge:

"

I don't want to look like a young quarterback. I want to make sure I get better each game. It's going to take a while. ... I'm only 25 years old, so I have a long way to grow, but I am just trying my best to every game play more confident. ... I still have a long ways to go, but I am definitely trying.

It's more of the mental side. Are you confident in your read, are you confident in what you are seeing, are you confident in your studies in that game? Because that is what leads to being physically confident. I hope that makes sense. That is just kind of how I look at it.

"

It does make sense, and Carr has taken several important steps forward in the last two-and-a-half seasons. If he can keep rolling on the same path, there's little doubt he has the wherewithal to be one of the league's best quarterbacks.