By most accounts, Oakland Raiders quarterback Derek Carr provided a fair amount of hope for fans of the black and silver with his play in 16 regular season games last year.
He completed 348 passes for 3,270 yards, 21 touchdowns, 12 interceptions and a 76.6 quarterback rating.
While the win-loss record (3-13) wasn't much different from the poor season outcomes Raiders fan have become all too familiar with in the recent past, it was the manner in which the team played and continually fought and the poise shown by Carr that made the final record a bit more bearable.
The jury is still out on whether or not Carr is the Raiders franchise quarterback and it remains to be seen if he can build off a good rookie NFL season to become a consistently high-quality signal-caller capable of leading Oakland to victory Sunday after Sunday, but he has already garnered the attention and admiration of some of the top personnel executives and coaches league wide.
AFC West rival Kansas City Chiefs head coach Andy Reid told Terez A. Paylor of The Kansas City Star while at the NFL's owners meetings in Phoenix that he believes Carr - a player he saw up close and personal twice last season - has the Raiders and new head coach Jack Del Rio in position to take a step forward next year.
"Jack (Del Rio's) got a good situation," Reid said of Carr, per Paylor. "That kid can play. Like, really play."
Reid, who took over in Kansas City prior to 2013 after 14 seasons with the Philadelphia Eagles, knows a thing or two about playing quarterback in the National Football League.
Reid entered the league as an assistant for the Green Bay Packers and was named quarterbacks coach in 1997. He parlayed that promotion into a quick hiring by the Eagles as head coach in January 1999.
Reid helped turn the formerly moribund Philly franchise around thanks in large part to innovative offensive ideas built around a strong passing game and the seemingly continuous development of young quarterbacks and revitalization of veteran passers.
From Donovan McNabb to A.J. Feeley to Koy Detmer to Jeff Garcia to Mike Vick, Reid proved time again that he could take a signal-caller, coach them up and tailor an offense to their particular skills and abilities.
He took McNabb with the second-overall pick in the 1999 draft and immediately crafted him into an immensely successful NFL quarterback and potential future Hall of Famer who lasted 13 seasons in the league. He took a former fifth-round draft pick in Feeley and aided him in helming the Super Bowl-worthy 2002 Eagles to four straight victories and the securing of the No. 1 playoff seed. And he took the downtrodden, injury-prone Garcia and rode him to the Divisional Round of the playoffs in 2006.
With the Chiefs, he's turned Alex Smith from a disappointing first-round pick with the Niners into a playoff quarterback that has posted back-to-back seasons of over 3,200-yards passing and a nearly 90.0 quarterback rating.
So, when Reid makes a seemingly innocuous comment about Carr's NFL future, Raiders fans should take note, because it's coming from a man who knows just what it takes to play the position at the professional level.
