Las Vegas Raiders running back Josh Jacobs has offered an inside look at the benching of quarterback Derek Carr in late December.
“It was definitely weird, man,” Jacobs said during an appearance on “PFT Live,” as shared by Myles Simmons of Pro Football Talk. “Just like, you can kind of see the signs that something was going to happen.”
Jacobs said players in the locker room understood immediate changes were coming following the 13-10 loss at the Pittsburgh Steelers on Christmas Eve which ended the Raiders’ playoff hopes.
“So we already kind of knew that they were about to shake some stuff up because they didn’t have anything to lose at that point. But we didn’t know it was going to be like that,” Jacobs remarked.
Jacobs later added that the downfall for the 2022 Raiders truly began with a 24-0 loss at the New Orleans Saints in Week 8 that was followed by a 27-20 defeat at the Jacksonville Jaguars which occurred on Nov. 6 and dropped Las Vegas to 2-6.
“We blew it,” Jacobs said of the Jaguars contest. “And that’s when I kind of knew. Because I was like, man, besides two games, every game that we’d lost, we lost by less than a touchdown. So I was like, clearly, we’re not figuring it out. Whatever it is we’re missing, we’re there, but we’re not there. We’re not close enough. That’s kind of when I was like, man, I don’t know how this season is about to go.”
Without Carr, the Raiders suffered an overtime loss to the San Francisco 49ers in Week 17 and then fell to the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 18 to finish with a record of 6-11.
Carr may be on the verge of joining the Saints as soon as the Monday after Super Bowl LVII, while his current teammates are publicly recruiting Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers to relocate to Las Vegas. Jacobs can hit free agency when the new league year opens next month but has admitted that the Raiders landing Rodgers “would change a lot of dynamics for me” as it pertains to “contract talks and everything.”
