Oakland Raiders: Armchair GM McTigue Calls for Team to Draft Mariota

ESPN Insider John McTigue either hates the Oakland Raiders so much that he wants to see them in a state of perpetual chaos and turmoil, he doesn’t have a brain in his head, or was up against a deadline and had to throw together an article – regardless of how absurd it was.

At this point, trying to figure out which one of those scenarios is correct is pretty much a toss up.

Just a few days ago, McTigue penned a column in which he makes a case for one of the dumbest ideas ever to fall out of the head of a sportswriter. To read the full column, you need a subscription to the ESPN Insider site, but with brilliant insights like McTigue’s, it’s probably not worth the money.

It seems that McTigue is of the opinion that Derek Carr is in fact, not a franchise quarterback, is not a cornerstone the Raiders can build around, and that Oakland would be better served by relegating him to the Black Hole of the bench and – wait for it – drafting Marcus Mariota.

Yes, that’s right, McTigue is suggesting that Reggie McKenzie got it all wrong by drafting Carr in the first place. He further suggests that McKenzie can make that right again by drafting Mariota – and suffer through all of the same rookie ups, downs, and growing pains the Raiders just suffered through with Carr.

To make his case, McTigue gets really, really heavy with the statistical analysis. From his article:

"“On the surface Carr’s rookie campaign compares favorably to other recent seasons by rookie QBs. He threw fewer interceptions (12) and completed a higher percentage of passes (58.1 percent) than Andrew Luck did (18, 54.1 percent) and he was the ninth rookie since the merger to throw at least 20 touchdown passes (21).A deeper dive into Carr’s numbers suggest his 2014 season left a lot to be desired, however. Carr finished the season with a 38.4 Total QBR, which ranked 28th out of 33 qualified quarterbacks. His QBR didn’t rank favorably among other recent rookies, either. Of the 27 rookies to qualify since 2006 — as far back as Total QBR data goes — Carr’s QBR ranks 15th, sandwiched between (38.4) EJ Manuel and Geno Smith (35.9).”"

So what McTigue is saying is that Carr is no better than either EJ Manuel or Geno Smith, and the Raiders should just cut bait now. And oh yeah, replace him with a rookie from a spread offense who has some question marks about his game transferring from college to the pros. Yeah, because that makes a lot of sense.

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McTigue quite obviously, didn’t spend a lot of time watching the Raiders play last season. Either that, or he doesn’t have a real solid grasp on the whole football thing. For the sake of argument though, we’ll just assume that he didn’t see much of Oakland last year.

While statistics are interesting and make for some great talking points, they don’t always tell you the full story. They sometimes don’t even tell you half the story. So for McTigue to rest his entire case on nothing more than numbers, with zero context at all, makes for a very half-baked theory, and an article that is perhaps, no more than a quarter-baked.

While it’s true that Carr had a nearly historic low of 5.46 yards per attempted pass, it’s a statistic that is incredibly misleading. It doesn’t tell you that the Raiders had a historically bad rushing attack. And anybody who understands football knows that if you don’t have a running game, your passing game is going to suffer mightily.

McTigue and his magic bag of statistics also fails to take into account that in former OC Greg Olson’s system, Carr was charged with getting rid of the ball as quickly as possible. To that end, he was mainly throwing short and intermediate routes. He took a few shots deep here and there, but the majority of his passes were of the dink and dunk variety. And oh yeah, not having a receiver who can stretch the field, and give him a viable target down the field surely contributed to that dismal number. Not to mention the fact that his receivers didn’t give him a whole lot in the way of yards after the catch.

Dec 21, 2014; Oakland, CA, USA; Oakland Raiders quarterback Derek Carr (4) reacts after throwing a touchdown pass against the Buffalo Bills in the fourth quarter at O.co Coliseum. The Raiders defeated the Bills 26-24. Mandatory Credit: Cary Edmondson-USA TODAY Sports

The point is that there are a lot of different factors, not all of Carr’s making, that contributed to the EJ Manuel/Geno Smith-esque numbers McTigue cites as his reasoning for going all in on Mariota.

McTigue also cites Mariota’s gaudy college numbers as the reason the Raiders should make the move to get him into Silver and Black. And while it’s true that Mariota put up some seriously eye-popping numbers, almost every quarterback who has played in a wide open, up tempo offense has put up numbers just like that. And not all of them succeed in the hugely unforgiving, slower paced NFL.

There is no doubt that Mariota has talent. He very well could turn out to be a terrific QB at the next level. But until we know how he performs in a traditional pro-style set, there is no way of knowing for sure. Mariota would be a giant question mark at the QB position for the Raiders once again.

By many metrics that actually matter, Carr had a relatively decent 2014 season. More than 3,000 yards passing and 21 touchdowns against just 12 interceptions are numbers that even some established pros couldn’t match last year.

Were there missteps and bumps in the road last year? Absolutely. Did he make some boneheaded rookie mistakes? Of course. Is that reason enough to throw the baby out with the bathwater? Only if you’re a knucklehead like McTigue.

With a full season’s worth of experience under his belt, Carr has shown the physical and mental toughness, the skills and ability, and the hutzpah it takes to be a starting quarterback in the National Football League. Under extreme pressure, with more responsibility on his shoulders than should be heaped upon a rookie, and without anything resembling a strong supporting cast, Carr rose to the occasion. He showed that he can play, and belongs in the NFL.

It’s not a knock on Mariota to say that Oakland should avoid drafting him at all costs and focus on the more pressing areas of need. They have their franchise quarterback in Carr – statistics be damned. Because statistics can be skewed, they don’t tell the whole story, and they certainly do not factor in the variety of things – like poor coaching and the lack of a running game. Nor can they measure the intangibles within an individual.

Raw numbers, the type of which McTigue is basing his whole ridiculous argument on, cannot measure the size of Carr’s heart. Nor can they measure the size of his will to win.

It’s beyond absurd to suggest that Oakland should dump Carr in favor of Mariota after just one season – a season in which Carr has shown the potential to be the face of the franchise for years to come. If Oakland can surround Carr with some solid, reliable weapons, there is no telling just how great he can be in 2015.

And hopefully, when Carr turns in a fantastic season, John McTigue will have the good graces to pen a retraction, an apology, and then issue a statement promising that he will refrain from ever playing armchair GM again. Because clearly, he’s not very good at it.

Next: Reggie McKenzie Sees the Bigger Picture for Oakland

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