The Las Vegas Raiders are going through a tough time right now.
Wide receiver Henry Ruggs was involved in a fatal crash a couple of days ago and is now facing DUI resulting in death and reckless driving charges. Needless to say, the organization had to cut ties with him immediately.
But even if what he did was undeniably wrong, and even though no one can defend him, his presence will still be missed around the locker room and in the gridiron.
Carr recently opened up on his feelings about Ruggs' situation, even stating that they were exchanging texts just hours before the tragic incident:
“I will say I walked by and saw Henry’s Locker today and for whatever reason, that got me you know like, like he’s not, not going to be there, you know," Carr told the media. "Not because he’s fast, not because of what he could do for me, but because of the person that he is and because I love him. I mean he literally texted me at midnight you know, golf swing, me and Hunter(Renfrow). He asked how his swing looked, you guys need to help me. Just seeing that and getting the news when we woke up, I don’t know even how I’m supposed to even handle that.”
After the loss of her father and a less than shiny 2020-21 season, Mikaela Shiffrin is gearing up for a six-event Olympics this year.
Carr isn't alone in that feeling. Interim coach Ray Bisaccia also said that there's not a guide on how to deal with these kinds of unfortunate situations, but credited his team's ability to get past it:
“There is no blueprint for this. There is no handbook that they give you for the obstacles that you occur, whether you’re a parent, whether you’re a teacher," Bisaccia said, as reported by ProFootballTalk. "I just think we all lean on each other in there and there [are] a lot of other coaches on the staff that have a lot of experiences. We have players that have gone through other things, so I think we’ve done a good job of communicating with each other. We’ve tried to give the best resources that we have to our players within [director of player engagement] Montelle [Sanders] and [team clinician] Jean [Fajardo] and people in their department, and then certainly, what we’ve done as coaches.”
Unfortunately, this isn't the first scandal the Raiders have been involved in this season. If anything, they just keep piling up.
Just a couple of weeks ago, they let go of coach Jon Gruden after someone leaked emails from his tenure with the Washington Football Team (then Redskins). That happened during an investigation on the team's alleged toxic workplace culture.
Gruden used homophobic and racist slurs to address colleagues and Commissioner Roger Goodell and is now threatening to pursue legal action against the NFL over his firing.
The Las Vegas Raiders have performed fairly better than expected this season. They made it to the BYE week with a 5-2 record and sit at the top of the AFC North division, even despite a down year from Darren Waller and Josh Jacobs.
Nonetheless, they have quite a tough road ahead of them with six of their final 10 games against potential playoff teams and will be down one of their best weapons and with an interim coach.
Hopefully, they won't cave into the pressure but that's just a lot to deal with.
