Kiper Considers Raiders a Dark Horse to Draft QB Despite Carr, Mariota on Roster

The Las Vegas Raiders are reportedly a "dark horse" to take a quarterback in the first round of the 2020 NFL draft despite the presence of Derek Carr and Marcus Mariota on the roster. 

Mel Kiper of ESPN wrote that Jon Gruden could target Jordan Love, allowing Carr to remain the starter next season while "grooming" the Utah State product. The top three quarterbacks in this class—Joe Burrow, Tua Tagovailoa and Justin Herbert—are expected to be off the board by the time the Raiders pick at No. 12.

Despite near-constant rumors about replacing Carr, the Raiders have given the quarterback several votes of confidence. They did not appear to be in the Tom Brady sweepstakes, instead signing Mariota as a backup, and general manager Mike Mayock was complimentary of Carr at the draft combine. 

"The guy completed 70 percent of his passes," Mayock told reporters. "He had almost a 3:1 touchdown-to-interception ratio. ... We were No. 11 in the league in total yards [363.7 per game]. We were seventh in third-down conversions [44 percent]. We did a lot of really good things on offense last year.

"Derek Carr played at a high level. I'm very happy with Derek Carr. What I've told everybody I've been in touch with since the day I took this job is we're going to evaluate every position every year, and if we can get better, we will. Guys get tired of me saying that, but that's really what I told [Raiders owner] Mark Davis before I took the job and that's my mantra."

There doesn't appear to be any real evidence that the Raiders are considering a quarterback. The speculation likely comes from a combination of Gruden's longstanding adoration of young quarterbacks and Carr's generally mediocre performance.

Carr has been a 20-20 quarterback in his two seasons under Gruden, consistently completing a high percentage of his passes while failing to cap off drives with touchdowns. Much of that is a product of Carr's conservatism with the ball and lack of ability to stretch the field; he had had the second-lowest aggressiveness percentage among NFL quarterbacks last season, per NFL.com.

Love is the anthesis of Carr, a rocket-armed, aggressive quarterback with every physical tool in the world but a propensity to make bad throws. If the Raiders wanted to move on from Carr, he would be the type of player who makes sense.

That said, the Raiders have far more pressing needs than quarterback. Their receiving corps might be the worst in football, and their defense was third-worst in the AFC in points allowed in 2019.