Carr conquers demons in statement victory
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Derek Carr could be forgiven for thinking he was due for another miserable day at Arrowhead Stadium.
The Raiders quarterback had not won in six tries in Kansas City. And when Carr threw an early interception Sunday that helped the Chiefs take an 11point lead, well, it seemed as if history was repeating itself.
“I’ve had a lot of sad walks up that ramp,” Carr said. “But you know what? Not today.”
That’s because the oftcriticized quarterback steadied his team, outplayed Super Bowl MVP Patrick Mahomes and led Las Vegas to a 4032 victory. Carr finished with 347 yards and three touchdowns passing.
Perhaps fittingly, he executed the quarterback sneak on 4thand1 that clinched the win.
“I think we’re back a little bit,” Carr said with a smile, “but we have to win football games against these guys to make it a rivalry. We haven’t done that in a long time.”
The game, tied 2424 after three quarters, could have gone either way. But with the Kansas City offense sputtering, the Raiders got the goahead touchdown from Josh Jacobs, a field goal from Daniel Carlson and an interception of a Mahomes pass on fourth down to set up Jacobs’ second TD and establish breathing room as Las Vegas lead 4024.
Mahomes responded, hitting Travis Kelce for a TD and Darrel Williams for the 2point try. But the Raiders ( 32) recovered a squib quick, Jacobs rumbled for a first down as the Chiefs ( 41) burned timeouts, and Carr sneaked for the crucial first down.
“It clicked to me in the locker room. I’m like, ‘ Man, this is your first win,’ ” Jacobs said of Carr. “It feels good to see him, and see how good he played in this game, being a captain. He just controlled the game, made sure everybody stayed positive.”
Mahomes spent much of the game trying to escape the Las Vegas pass rush, which manhandled the Chiefs offensive line. He finished with 340 yards passing and two touchdowns along with an interception. Kelce had 108 yards receiving.
“You know, we just didn’t execute at a high enough level,” Mahomes said. “We weren’t running plays the right way and I wasn’t finding the right reads, and that carried over and we didn’t play the second half the way we wanted to.”
The first half ended with the teams tied at 2424 after they combined for nearly 700 yards of offense.
The Raiders pulled ahead on Jacobs’ 7yard run. They then made it a twopossession game on Carlson’s 43yard field goal, which came after Carr hit Hunter Renfrow for 42 yards on 3rdand18. Jeff Heath’s pick of Mahomes’ pass a few minutes later set up Jacobs for another TD.