Raiders Notes: Mark Davis, Khalil Mack, Jon Gruden, Derek Carr

Mark Davis

Raiders owner Mark Davis took responsibility for the team’s 1-8 start to the 2018 season.

“I always look in the mirror, and the buck stops with me,” Davis told Paul Gutierrez of ESPN. “Where this team is right now is my fault. We haven’t been able to build a 22-man roster. We haven’t been able to give this team a chance to win because the reconstruction failed. We failed from 2014 on to have a roster right now.”

Khalil Mack

Mark Davis explained that they reached to Khalil Mack and his agent shortly after they signed Derek Carr to a long-term deal. However, they weren’t interested in getting a deal done at that point.

“But they decided they didn’t want to do it that early,” Davis said. “They would wait.”

“From that point on, (Mack) would not talk to anyone in our organization,” Davis said. “Not Reggie, not Jon, not anybody.”

“Jon wanted him. Everybody thinks that Jon’s the one who wanted to get rid of him. Jon wanted him badly. Why wouldn’t you want this guy? Reggie wanted him badly. And I wanted him badly, too. But, if in fact we were going to give the type of money that we were going to give to him, and we had Derek on that type of a (contract), how were we going to go ahead and build this football team, with all the holes that we had?”

“My thought was, ‘Listen, he signed a five-year contract, if he’s the type of guy that I think he is, he’s going to honor that contract,'” Davis recalled. “And he’s going to come in and play for the $13 million for this year and then we’ll work for him during the year and get it. Word came back through certain players that know him and talk to him and know me as well, that he wasn’t going to come in. He was going to do the Le’Veon Bell (holdout). At that point, I said, ‘F it. The guy hasn’t talked to anybody. We’ve got to do something.'”

Derek Carr

Davis also offered some support for QB Derek Carr, who has really struggled this year.

“Derek’s taking a lot of s— right now,” Davis said. “He is the franchise quarterback right now. He doesn’t have Amari Cooper. He lost (Martavis) Bryant to a knee injury today. Guys have been getting hurt. Who’s he throwing to? Jordy Nelson and Seth Roberts, which are good guys. But they’re not putting the fear of God in anybody. The tight end (Jared Cook) is playing his ass off. You look at the quarterback and he’s playing behind a battered offensive line … so I don’t know what you can put on Derek and I don’t think it’s fair to put all the blame on him.”

Jon Gruden

As for HC Jon Gruden, Davis made it clear that this is just the start of his 10-year agreement and he’s “going nowhere.”

“I understood it was going to be a lot of work, but Jon has a 10-year contract,” Davis said. “I know how hard Jon Gruden works. I know how much he wants to win. And how much days like today are killing him.

“Having Jon Gruden here was the endgame for me. Jon’s going to be the stability here. Jon’s going nowhere. That’s just the way it is.“