Derek Carr: Making plays against the Rams’ defense gives us confidence

[profootballtalk.nbcsports.com]

Derek Carr: Making plays against the Rams’ defense gives us confidence
Posted by Myles Simmons on August 18, 2021, 6:14 PM EDT

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Derek Carr and the Las Vegas offense had a solid day for the first of two practices with the Rams in Southern California this week. Carr was able to hit some key passes down the field, while the team’s revamped offensive line held its own against Los Angeles’ group, led by defensive tackle Aaron Donald.

After practice, Carr mentioned one factor in the success was that head coach Jon Gruden encouraged the starters to treat the practice like a game.


“So [that was] our mindset last night — getting to bed early, and even going into waking up this morning, just treating it like a game-day mentality,” Carr said in his press conference. “Because we didn’t watch any film on these guys, so you kind of guess, like, ‘Well, I think they run these fronts.’ We kind of talked about it a little bit. But you don’t know. So really just getting new blitzes, new coverages, new looks, and just really playing football and seeing what happens when we see our rules. And now we have some great tape where they had a free runner on a blitz one time, we can coach that up and go through that.

“But besides that, these are like game reps. I think I’ve said it many times, that you get more out of this than you do a preseason game. Here in practice with the Rams, you’re going to see more crazy looks than what they would show during a preseason game. You’re going to get a real glimpse of what they do.”

Carr pointed to a play where Rams cornerback Jalen Ramsey was sitting in a spot where a player on Las Vegas’ defense normally wouldn’t be, so instead of “cutting it loose,” Carr checked it down to running back Josh Jacobs and gained something like eight yards.

But overall, the success against an L.A. defense that finished No. 1 in both yards allowed and scoring last season meant something for Las Vegas.

“For us to be able to show that our plays and our designs and our guys could win against the best, gives us confidence going forward — knowing that they’ll make some too,” Carr said. “But whenever you can make some on a defense like that, you feel good about it going forward.”