Report: Raiders Players Don't Respect Derek Carr Anymore Because He Cried on the Field

Source – With Khalil Mack and Amari Cooper gone from the Raiders, the next question maybe isn’t whether the team wants to move quarterback Derek Carr but whether it can keep him.

Marcus Thompson II of TheAthletic.com reports that Carr currently has a “fractured relationship” with his teammates. The reportedly fractured relationship between Carr and his teammates is rooted in a loss of confidence in the quarterback, as exacerbated by game film from the London contest against the Seahawks that “showed what looked like him crying after being sacked and injuring his arm.”

“They saw his face,” Thompson writes. “They heard his whimper. They witnessed him explain on the sidelines. They assuredly watched it again in film session. It’s hard to see how Carr can lead this team again.”

Is this really where we are at in 2018? I thought we’d evolved beyond the sort of Neanderthal culture that says men can’t cry and still be respectable in the eyes of other men. I’d hoped we were long since passed the days when grown tears in a man’s eyes invited a slap from Gen. Patton or to have Don Corelone grab you by the lapels and scream “You can act like a MAN!” I believed that perhaps we had entered a new age of American manhood where Bachelorette contestants can let their eyes glaze over like a lemur’s and their lips quiver while they talk about being “vulnerable” in order to get to feel up a stranger on network TV. But if what we’re hearing out of Oakland is true, I was wrong. Toxic masculinity is alive and well in pro football. The NFL is one of the last remaining holdouts of the Alpha Male mentality. It’s the game preserve protecting our endangered population of Swansons:

It’s a pity poor Derek Carr realized this too late. He thought he could open up to his teammates. To expose the sensitive side of himself and really connect to them on a deep, personal level. To let his walls down. But apparently they lack the emotional IQ to see that crying isn’t a sign of weakness. It’s a sign of strength. I shows he’s fully secure in his masculinity and doesn’t need to repress his true feelings because of how others might react. And if they can’t handle it, that’s a “them” problem. They’re the weak ones, not him.

Mostly Carr needed to understand that in a violent culture such is pro football, you have to be able to mask your pain – both physical and emotional – if you can ever hope to lead men. That means you can’t cry because you got banged up a little. Crying is acceptable only when you’re dealing with real pain. The kind of pain that can only come from being drafted behind Giovanni Carmozzi, Marc Bulger and Tee Martin:

That’s what true leadership is all about. Those are the kinds of manly, masculine tears that don’t cost you respect, they earn you respect. Derek Carr, take note. And clean your shit up if you ever expect to lead a huddle again.