Marcus Mariota raised a few eyebrows when he signed a two-year, $ 17.6 million contract with the Raiders during the offseason.
Understandably, the stories that followed sparked the idea of quarterback controversy in Las Vegas, but training camp reports reaffirmed that Derek Carr is still firmly entrenched as a starter to Jon Gruden.
Gruden has been complementary to Mariota’s camp so far and this week he detailed some of the challenges Mariota has faced as he struggles to recover and perform in a new attack.
“He’s reinventing himself right now,” Gruden told Jim Miller and Pat Kirwan of SiriusXM NFL. “He must have had that healthy ankle. The shoulder had to be healthy. We’re changing a few of his fundamentals just to try and get him in rhythm with our offense and so far he’s been impressive.
One thing Gruden didn’t mention is how complicated his playbook and verbiage can be for a quarterback to learn. This is not something that will happen for Mariota overnight. Everyone remembers the old clip of Chris Simms trying to call a play for Gruden in Tampa and how hard he just had to rehearse the play in the clique. It will also take time for Mariota.
With that in mind, Simms recently gave a short tutorial on Gruden verbiage on offense.
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But we don’t want to leave you with Simms looking like the smartest guy in the room. So let’s end the article with this …
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Plus… Baker Mayfield isn’t a better quarterback than Carr.
Twitter: @raidersbeat
(photo credit: raiders.com)
