Mike Mayock knew that status of his quarterback Derek Carr would be the dominant subject at his press conference at the scouting combing Tuesday. It was the second question and found its way into a few other questions as well. Mayock did his best to focus on the positives with Carr and not go back on his stance that the QB position is under evaluation.

“I’m surprised that it took two questions to get to Derek, but thank you,” Mayock said in response to the inevitable question as to whether he is committed to Derek Carr as the Raiders QB.

“I mean bottom line is this; I think everyone needs to understand at what level Derek Carr played last year, ok. The guy completed 70 percent of his passes, he had almost a 3-to-1 touchdown to interception ratio. I think we’re number 11 in the league in total yards, we were 7th in third-down conversions. We did a lot of really good things on offense last year. The disconnect is we didn’t score a lot of points. You’re 11 in yards and 24 in points, there’s an issue. It’s defense, it’s special teams, it’s not scoring in the red zone, and it’s not scoring in goal to go. To me, those are the issues.”

“Derek Carr played at a high level. I’m very happy with Derek Carr. What I told everyone that I’ve been in touch with since the day I took this job is we’re going to evaluate every position, every year. And if we can get better, we will. Guys get tired of me saying that, but that’s really what I told Mark Davis before I took the job. And that’s my mantra.”

This is what, in politics, they like to call ‘spin’. Many people can point to the negatives from last season, but Mayock wants you to see the positives. Those stats look great on paper. Mentioning them doesn’t automatically mean Mayock and the Raiders are blind to his faults.

Likewise, it doesn’t mean Carr is the future of the franchise. It could mean he wants other teams to focus on the positives in case those teams are looking to offer the Raiders something in trade.

Should the Raiders go down that road, they would need to replace Carr. The big-name that has been thrown around the most has been Tom Brady. Mayock was asked about his feelings on those rumors/reports.

“I don’t make anything of any rumors,” Mayock replied. “All I can tell you about free agency because I’m not allowed to talk about any of them anyway, is I’ve watched tape of just about every guy out there at every position, and all that does is uphold what I’m telling you is that every position gets evaluated every year and if we can upgrade it we will.”