I’m not confident about Derek Carr turning things around tonight. He’s been playing pretty poorly, and he’s facing a defense that seems to have a good feel for how to play against him. Andy Reid took the Kansas City job in 2013, and he’s 7-1 against Oakland.
Kansas City has a good defense, and its style tends to work against Carr. He doesn’t tend to take sacks, but they’ve been able to pressure him. In 52 starts as a pro, Carr has taken only 80 sacks, an average of 1.5 per game. But Kansas City sacked him at least 4 times in three of six career meetings. He’s been sacked 4-plus times in only three of 46 games against other teams.
Carr’s lone win against Kansas City came three ago, when he was just a rookie. I remember that was also a home game on a Thursday night, and with Latavius Murray providing the spark with a couple of early touchdown runs (including one from 90 yards).
But the far more notable results came in the 2015-16 seasons, after Carr developed into a viable NFL passer. In 27 games against other teams in those seasons, Carr threw 55 touchdowns and only 14 interceptions – Brady-like numbers.
But Carr is 0-4 in his last four against Kansas City, with 5 TDs and 5 interceptions (and averaging just 205 passing yards).
Carr has value, but multiple trends suggest it’s best to leave him parked on the bench this week. For fantasy purposes, it would make more sense to gamble this week on an unknown quantity like Brett Hundley.
| DEREK CARR AGAINST KANSAS CITY | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Site | Score | Cmp | Att | Yds | TD | Int |
| 2014 | Oak. | W 24-20 | 18 | 35 | 174 | 1 | 0 |
| 2014 | K.C. | L 13-31 | 27 | 56 | 222 | 1 | 0 |
| 2015 | Oak. | L 20-34 | 31 | 48 | 283 | 2 | 3 |
| 2015 | K.C. | L 17-23 | 21 | 33 | 194 | 1 | 1 |
| 2016 | Oak. | L 10-26 | 22 | 34 | 225 | 1 | 1 |
| 2016 | K.C. | L 13-21 | 17 | 41 | 117 | 0 | 0 |
—Ian Allan