Derek Carr saw what happened to Sean Smith this past Sunday in New Orleans.
Like everyone else, Carr saw the Raiders cornerback get burned on a 98-yard pass play and look helpless in defending quick Saints wide receiver Brandin Cooks. He also saw Smith promptly get benched, replaced by DJ Hayden.
But Carr believes it’s just a temporary blip.
“I’m not worried about him, and I don’t think our fans should be either,” Carr told Paul Gutierrez of ESPN.
Head coach Jack Del Rio, too, believes Smith will learn from the game and come back strong. Del Rio says Smith will be back in the starting lineup this Sunday when the Raiders host the Atlanta Falcons.
Del Rio told the media Monday that he spoke to Smith after Sunday’s game and told him “you’ve got to own up” to what happened against the Saints.
“He’s a big boy,” said Del Rio. “He’ll bounce back. He’s going to be a good player for us, I said that yesterday. It was not what we need and he knows that.
Raiders
“I said, ‘Hey, you’ve got to own up to that.' That certainly wasn’t anywhere near where it needed to be and he knows that.”
Both Carr and defensive end/linebacker Khalil Mack talked to Smith Sunday, during and after the game, to let him know they believe in him.
Signing Smith, one of the best cornerbacks in free agency this offseason, came at a heavy price ($40 million), but the Raiders believed Smith could be the big man in the secondary, capable of stopping an emerging corps of tall, playmaking receivers in the league.
At 6-foot-3 and 220 pounds, Smith has shown he’s capable of shutting down those big receivers, and was coming off a terrific season for the Chiefs in 2015.
Now he’ll have to rebound in a big way, beginning this Sunday.
Carr, for one, has no doubts he can.
Said Carr, to Gutierrez: “I told Sean, ‘Hey man, you’re one of the best corners I’ve ever played in my life.’ Anyone who wants to challenge that, we can go back and watch the film and see he is a shutdown-type corner. He really is. (But) some days it’s going to be like that. It’s going to hurt. It’s going to sting. It’s going to be hard to sleep … But I know him. He’s going to come back and be the same dominant guy.”
