The optimism is higher than its been in the past decade for the Oakland Raiders, mainly because the organization finally seemed to have solved the riddle at the quarterback position—a riddle that’s has been negatively affecting the franchise since Rich Gannon led the silver and black to a Super Bowl appearance in 2002.

The Raiders presented Derek Carr to the NFL last season, a second-round pick in the 2014 NFL draft (36th overall) out of pass-happy Fresno State. Oakland pulled no punches when deciding if Carr was ready to be a starting quarterback in the NFL, as the Raiders started him Week 1 and he continued to start throughout all 16 games of the regular season.

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It wasn’t pretty early on, as the Raiders had many holes aside from the quarterback position and their 0-10 start to the season wasn’t all pinned on the rookie quarterback’s shoulders. The promise for the Raiders showed in the final six weeks of the regular season, when Latavius Murray was being used as the primary running back, giving balance to the offense as a whole.

For looking at Carr’s 2015 fantasy perspective, we’ll focus on Weeks 12 through 17 of last season, where the Raiders played some of their best football. Since Murray is going to be the No. 1 running back for the Raiders this season, expect more of the same production from the Raiders strong, late finish to the season.

Week 12 against the Kansas City Chiefs was the first time Murray made a mark on the Raiders offense. In the Raiders first win of the season, Murray broke out in style, rushing only four times for 112 yards (28 ypc) and two touchdowns. With the Chiefs all of a sudden finding themselves worried about the run, Carr completed just over 50% of his passes (18-for-35) for 174 and a touchdown.

Murray missed the Raiders next game due to a concussion, and to no one’s surprise, the Raiders got rolled by the St. Louis Rams by a score of 52-0. For what it’s worth, Carr was 24-for-39 with two interceptions.

Murray reentered the offense as the primary back against the San Francisco 49ers in Week 14, running 23 times for 76 yards. Even on a day where Murray didn’t break off any big plays, the balance still positively impacted Carr who was brilliant. Carr completed 22-of-28 passes for 254 yards and three touchdowns, which is the best game of his career to date. There was a similar trend in the game against Buffalo two weeks later, when Carr completed 50% of his passes with two touchdowns while Murray was the bell cow, rushing 23 times for 86 yards and catching three passes.

Last season, when Murray rushed for over 100 yards or received more than 20 carries, the Raiders were 3-0. In those three games, Carr completed 57 of 97 passes (59%) for 642 yards with six touchdowns and zero interceptions.

With Murray set to be the featured back for Oakland this season, Derek Carr’s play should trend towards those three victories from last season.

There’s also the addition of the No. 4 overall pick of the 2015 NFL Draft, Alabama’s Amari Cooper, which is by far and away the best receiver Carr will throw to in his young career. Carr is already showing favoritism towards Cooper, peppering the rookie wide receiver with targets early and often in the first-team offense as would be expected out of a Bill Musgrave offense that's averaged over 130 targets to their #1 WR.

On average, Carr is the No. 22 quarterback selected in a standard 12-team scoring league, currently behind names like Andy Dalton, Jay Cutler and Colin Kaepernick. A successful season for Carr would be to finish in the top-20 overall for quarterbacks, if the balance to the offense is brought through Murray over a full 16 games. If Carr and Cooper can develop a potent relationship, Carr could become a top-15 quarterback over the next two or three seasons as his arrow is certainly trending upwards.

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