This may be a bigger season for Oakland Raiders quarterback Derek Carr than we thought.
Raiders offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave is now in his second season working with the budding star quarterback and that means allowing Carr to tweak the system as he sees fit.
"I think it helps that he doesn't have to learn a new language again," Musgrave said, via CSN Bay Area. "Two years in the league, he had two different systems. Now, this year, he can feel like he has a good grasp of it and start putting his own spin on things and can put his own signature on the system. Things that he wants to see or tweak a quarter turn here or there, he can initiate that."
While this could be just another offseason confidence-building platitude, it's important to note that every good-to-great quarterback in the NFL places his own stamp on the offense. Peyton Manning, an extreme outlier to one side, essentially created his own offense. But Eli Manning has his own flavor incorporated into the Packers-style offense in New York and Aaron Rodgers has his own in Mike McCarthy's system as well. Tom Brady's version of the Erhardt-Perkins system is modified significantly from its origins. It's worth noting that we could see a very similar transition taking place in Jacksonville with Blake Bortles.
Carr has the rare opportunity to use his second year in an offense as a launching pad for the future. These plays, which are theoretically similar to just about any other teams' plays in the NFL, can be modified and altered based on Carr's field-level understanding of his personnel and his own knowledge of personal strengths. That is something good quarterbacks carry with them throughout a long NFL career. It's also a main reason why rookie experiments falter so frequently.
The Raiders are the year's trendiest pick to emerge from the muck and compete for a playoff spot. Much of that belief stems from the confidence that Musgrave is showing in Carr.
