The Las Vegas Raiders made some headlines recently when they had quarterback Colin Kaepernick in for a workout at the team facility. Kaepernick is attempting to get back into the NFL as he has essentially been blackballed since 2016 when he took a knee during the national anthem pregame to protest police brutality and racial injustice.
Kaepernick is a polarizing figure and despite being out of the league as long as he has been, his workout still garnered a lot of attention. The Raiders aren’t a team that is afraid to make a few waves, so it does not come as a surprise that they are the only organization to have worked Kaepernick out since.
Their current quarterback, Derek Carr, was given a heads-up by new head coach Josh McDaniels about the situation. As he has been throughout his career, Carr was not phased by it, instead, speaking very highly of Kaepernick.
Carr actually believes Kaepernick would be great in the Raiders’ locker room. He discussed it on Tuesday following the team’s first mandatory minicamp practice.
“I don’t want to speak for everybody in that kind of sense — I don’t want someone mad at me for saying, ‘I think it would be great,’ — but I know him and I would get along great,” Carr said Tuesday. “I know we have in the past, and I think we would again. I think for the most part, I think he’d get along great with our guys.”
The two quarterbacks go back to their college days when Kaepernick was leading Nevada and Carr was doing the same for Fresno State. They were both eventually selected in the second round, as each was picked No. 36 overall; Kaepernick in 2011 to the San Francisco 49ers and Carr in 2014 to the Raiders.
Derek isn’t the only member of the Carr family to speak highly of the embattled quarterback. His older brother, David Carr, crossed paths with Kaepernick during the offseason following the draft with San Francisco and liked him a lot as well.
There are four quarterbacks currently on the Las Vegas roster. Behind Carr, it is Nick Mullens, Jarrett Stidham and Chase Garbers. Like many of the quarterback rooms around the league, it is hard to say with a straight face that Kaepernick isn’t a better player than most of the players occupying depth charts at the position around the league.
