Loyalty test as journey nears end
You have to admire the blind faith of half of the Raiders’ fans in the Coliseum on Sunday.
Early in the third quarter, with their Raiders trailing 28-14 after the Browns turned a Derek Carr interception into a touchdown and two-point conversion, the fans began streaming for the exits, heading to the parking lot where the cell reception is better and ordering playoff tickets is easier.
They knew their boys would fight back, make key plays and win this baby in overtime, 45-42.
OK, some of those fans might have left because of the cumulative hits they have absorbed: the move to Vegas, the
possibility of their team bailing early to parts unknown next year, the trading of their best player, the 0-3 start, the talk that Jon Gruden might be looking more to the future than to the present, and the looming beatdown at the hands of the woebegone Browns.
They are restless, for sure, those fans. They started booing with gusto early in the third quarter after that Carr interception, and they continued to boo when the Raiders’ next possession stalled on yet another dropped pass.
I asked tight end Jared Cook, who caught eight passes for 110 yards and two touchdowns, whether he heard the boos.
“Absolutely,” said Cook, who added, “And they left. What’s that mean to us? They can’t cancel the games just because they boo us. We’ve still got a game to finish. It’s about pride, it’s about the men in this room on a journey together. So it don’t matter if they boo us or not, we still gotta go out there and do our job.” Does the booing hurt? “Nah,” Cook said. “We don’t care, ’cause it’s us against the world. That’s how we feel, you know? They’re supposed to be fans for a reason, fair weather or not. If you ridin’ with us, ride with us. If not, then, we’ll holler.”
If those boo-birds and earlyexiting fans had a theme song, it would be Buddy Guy’s “Damn Right I’ve Got the Blues.”
Decades of loyalty, yet the end of their line is near. The Raiders have five more home games, then they might be gone forever. So many wounds. When fill-in kicker Matt McCrane shanked a 47-yard field-goal attempt early in the second quarter, fans remembered that Gruden cut the popular and successful Giorgio Tavecchio before the season because he kicks lefty.
“Just win, baby,” has, for many fans, morphed into “Boo hard, leave early.”
Still, if any team ever gave disgruntled fans a reason to ignore the slings and arrows and root their guys to whatever the finish line looks like this season, the Raiders did so Sunday with a vintage, oldstyle Raiders win.
Facing virtual elimination from the playoffs, facing a plummet to rock bottom on the experts’ power rankings, facing gloom and doom, the Raiders found their mojo, their spark, their inspiration.
Carr, looking like he might write himself into Raiders history as a great underachiever, rallied the offense. In the second half and overtime, Carr was 21-for-37 for 276 yards, with three touchdowns and the overtime-forcing two-point conversion pass to Jordy Nelson just before the end of regulation.
“Derek, man, Derek was just resilient,” Cook said. “He stood in the pocket even though he was getting blown up a few times, and delivered the throws to us down the field.”
Yep, long passes, the type Carr supposedly won’t throw. And if the fans had a right to be discouraged well into the second half, how about Carr? I counted at least six dropped passes, including a sure-thing touchdown to Martavis Bryant, and three drops in a row after the Browns took that 14-point lead and the booing started.
Carr was not blameless. He missed a wide-open Nelson in the first quarter on what would have been a lob-pass touchdown. And though he was sacked just three times, and Cleveland first-time-starter Baker Mayfield went down twice, Mayfield looked like Carr on roller skates, cleverly escaping sack after sack.
Doubt was creeping in, at least among some of the fans. Is Carr really the quarterback to lead this team to greatness? When will Gruden beat Carr senseless with his visor?
Maybe not. Gruden, though saying he continues to raise the bar of expectation for Carr, said, “He’s a spectacular talent. He’s a great kid. He’s going to be fine in this offense, but we keep raising the bar for him . ... He played the best when the game meant the most.”
So did Carr’s teammates, although by crunch time, half the fans had disappeared into the gloaming.
“I thank our fans for hanging in there with us,” Gruden said. “A lot of ups and downs.”
And the beginning of the end is just beginning.