It seems the Oakland Raiders and their silver-spiked and face painted faithful are about to get a bit of good news.
Young franchise signal-caller Derek Carr, who has been missing organized team activities the last two weeks after suffering a finger injury, shouldn't be on the shelf much longer.
"Source: #Raiders QB Derek Carr was cleared for participation in minicamp. He may not throw at 100%, but he'll be 100% for training camp," Ian Rapoport of NFL.com tweeted Monday.
Carr has taken some "baby steps" toward a return to the field recently - "He'll do what he can when he can," head coach Jack Del Rio said last week. "Derek is doing well right now." - but it seems he's finally been cleared to return to the top spot for a Raiders team desperate to get back onto the winning track.
It's especially good news considering Carr's new de facto No. 1 target, wide receiver Amari Cooper, seems to be making serious headway with his coaches and teammates with some impressive work at OTAs.
Late last week, HNGN passed along a report from ESPN NFL insider Adam Caplan that Cooper is already considered the "real deal" by coaches.
"Real deal. Almost no mental errors. Runs great routes, consistent route runner," Caplan quoted a team source as saying then.
If Cooper is to continue to develop as expected, he'll need to start catching passes from and nurturing a rapport with Carr sooner rather than later.
While it's imperative that Carr get healthy and not put his 2015 season at risk, the quicker he can get back, the quicker the Raiders and offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave can get to work implementing their full offensive scheme and the sooner Del Rio can start to reverse the fortunes of an Oakland team that has fallen for far too long on hard times.
