Silver Minings: Josh McDaniels talks about what Derek Carr can gain from preseason

Last Thursday during the Las Vegas Raiders' first preseason game, starting quarterback sat on the sidelines with a camouflage Raiders hat and an earpiece in and watched the entire game.

That’s nothing new for Carr, who hasn’t taken a snap in the preseason since 2019, and it’s a smart strategy seeing as he’s entering year nine in the league and is in no danger of losing his job. But that does beg the question of what Las Vegas’ signal caller has to gain during the games over the next month? Why even show up?

Head coach Josh McDaniels gave his thoughts on that question during his post-practice press conference on Friday.

“All those guys when they’re not in the game, to me it’s a great opportunity, for the quarterbacks one, to listen, because [Carr] had the earpiece in so it was basically like he would be out there and this is the kind of communication, the dialogue that would be happening with the quarterback from the play caller. I think that’s very valuable. And then I think all of our players, just understanding how we approach each situation.

“Each coaching staff I’d say addresses or tries to play situations differently in many cases. We were backed up last week, we had a two-minute situation come up on defense, [there are] all these different elements to the game that we just don’t have that many opportunities to go through before September 11. Everything that they hear on the sideline, every time we have one of those come up in a preseason game, I think it’s an opportunity for us to grow and improve. He handled it perfectly last week, and I would expect the same this week.”

Especially with a new scheme, those mental reps McDaniels is referring to are important in getting familiar with the flow of the offense. While there’s no replacing doing it live, the more exposure Carr gets to his coach’s play calling in up-tempo situations like two-minute drills, the more he’ll be to anticipate so the offense can operate faster and more efficiently.

It sounds like this will continue to be the case on Sunday as McDaniels was asked if Carr and Davante Adams will play against the Vikings, and the coach replied: “You’ll definitely see them at the stadium. They’ll all be there.”

In other Raiders links:

• Rookie matchups: a few one-on-one bouts to keep an eye on this Sunday.
• Podcast: get caught up on everything you need to know from these past couple of weeks.
• Raiders sign CB Nate Brooks: this was in response to putting Cre’Von LeBlan on injured reserve.
• Thread from training camp in Vegas: the MMQB’s Albert Breer shared five observations he made from the Raiders practice the other day.