Derek Carr got his first real taste of Jon Gruden's offense the Oakland Raiders opened veteran minicamp Tuesday. The quarterback said he hit the ground running.
"We went out there and we practiced and it didn't feel like a Day 1," Carr said, via Jerry McDonald of the Bay Area News Group. "We felt like we had been in it. We felt like we had been grinding. We felt like we kind of knew what we were doing, then just making little corrections. It wasn't like, 'Hey, this is brand new.' It just felt like, 'This is what we do.' "
Carr's been through this rodeo before. The Raiders' quarterback is on his fourth offensive coordinator in five years. This change, however, comes with some familiarity. Oakland's new OC, Greg Olson, was Carr's coordinator as a rookie. The QB said that while there are some differences in how Gruden's offense will run, knowing Olsen's tendency will make the transition easier.
"I don't know about the guys that weren't here with Oly, but for me that's made it easy," Carr said. "The terminology, the way they call certain things, that has been kind of similar. Obviously coach Gruden brings on his own stuff doing it that way, but yes, there are some similarities."
Carr said despite being at the outset of offseason work he's already mentally in synch with the coaching staff.
"We're about 90 percent there, where we're speaking the same language," Carr said. "We've got the gist of each other. We know what we're saying. Once we get rolling, it's going to be awesome. It already is. I love every part of the process . . . there are teams that have been in the same system for 15 years. We have to do that in a hurry."
It was smooth sailing for Carr on Day 1. With players in shorts and no pads, it would be troubling if the $125 million QB did struggle. Expect Gruden to ramp up the challenges as we press toward the summer.
"He threw everything at me," Carr said. "He tried to get me, see if I was listening to him in the meetings and those things. We had a lot of fun doing that. It's always fun to accept his challenge and hopefully do good at it and look at him and wink."
