Derek Carr had one of his worst quarters as a pro on Monday night against the Rams. After a solid first half and a so-so third quarter, the wheels came off the Raider offense in the fourth quarter and unsurprisingly, it resurrected many of Carr’s skeptics.

Gruden added some fuel to the discussion when he seemed to suggest Carr missed Amari Cooper on a few occasions.

“[Amari] Cooper was open deep, he was open a couple times,” Jon Gruden said on Wednesday. “For whatever reason, we didn’t go there.”

Whether Gruden’s comment was directed at Carr or not, the coaches film was released on Wednesday and it revealed that Gruden wasn’t wrong, but Cooper was hardly running free all night. In fact, there were only three plays where Cooper could have had big gains and was missed.

The first opportunity showed up in the first quarter. Cooper was even with his defender in the image below but had 2-3 steps on him about 10 yards farther downfield.

This was an opportunity missed, but a closer look shows Carr’s pass protection was breaking down quickly and he would have known from the pre-snap read that Cook was going to have single coverage.

A second longer for Carr to look back to his left could have amounted to a big gain.

The second throw Carr missed to Cooper was probably the worst. Carr’s initial read was to Cooper’s side on the field (the right side), but he went to his second read too quickly and didn’t have time to come back. As soon as he looked to Nelson’s side, the Rams had a breakdown in coverage and Cooper ran free.

One broken tackle and Cooper might have scored (below).

Then came this play in the fourth quarter. Carr missed Cooper get behind the defense, but threw a perfect pass to Jalen Richard that would have been a huge gain, too.

Richard dropped the pass, but it’s hard to be critical of Carr for picking either option. Of all the passes his way, this was the one Richard could have done the most with.

Another angle of the drop shows just how much room Richard would have had after the catch. Again, one missed tackle and he might have scored.

I missed this live, but what a devastating drop this was by Jalen Richard. Look at all that open field. This was the first play of the 4th quarter with #Raiders down 20-13. They would go three and out. pic.twitter.com/1WQNmkjkjV — Levi Damien (@LeviDamien) September 12, 2018

No doubt, Carr left a couple throws on the field, but in 40 pass attempts against the Rams, he didn’t leave a lot. For most of the night, the Rams made sure to keep a safety over Cooper and the times they didn’t, the pass rush was enough to keep anything from developing downfield.

What stood out about the Raiders pass protection was how many times they left only five players in to block. Kolton Miller and Donald Penn were on islands most of the night and held up reasonably well. The interior of the offensive line, though, was pushed back into Carr for most of the night. Aaron Donald was dominant even when he wasn’t getting to Carr.

Safe to say, a well-paid defensive lineman can very much minimize the play of a well-paid quarterback.

twitter: @raidersbeat