Carr again comes through in the clutch

Derek Carr has plenty of faults as a quarterback, but no one — absolutely no one — can say that Carr isn’t clutch.

The Raiders’ quarterback has shown an incredible flair for the dramatic in his four years in Oakland, and on Thursday night he sprinkled his magic dust on another game, leading the Raiders to a 31-30 win over the division rival Chiefs with the 13th fourth-quarter comeback and 13th game-winning drive of his career.

In a game defined by chaos, Carr’s late-game heroics, as im-

probable and peculiar as they were, had the added benefit of saving the Raiders’ season, too.

It’s incredible howmuch different a 2-5 record looks to compared to a 3-4 record at this juncture in the season: A 3- 4 team is still in the thick of the playoff hunt in the parity- driven AFC.; a 2- 5 team, winless in the division and losers of five straight, is dead to rights.

“We’ve struggled to do a lot of things in the last month,” Carr said. “Twoand- five did not sound good. Thatmade our stomach hurt.”

It seems simplistic, but it’s true: the Raiders season was on the line Thursday, but they’re now are a 3- 4 team, with every lofty expectation they had in the preseason still available to them, at least for a few more weeks.

Instead, we’re talking about a team with moxie, guts, and hope.

All because of Carr’s unquestioned and unexplainable flair for the dramatic.

All the way up to the final seconds of the game. They had Carr under center — of course they believed.

Down by six with 2:25 to play, Carr led the Raiders on an 85-yard drive to tie and then win the game with Georgio Tavecchio’s extra point.

That’s the simple version of what happened.

After a big 39-yard completion to Amari Cooper and a fourth-down conversion to Jared Cook, Carr’s 28-yard pass to Cook over triple coverage, originally ruled a touchdown, put the Raiders at the 1-yard line with seven seconds left, after which the Raiders took four shots (two on untimed downs) into the end zone.

Michael Crabtree, who had a 1-yard touchdown pass negated by offensive pass interference on the first play of the four-play sequence, took advantage of two Kansas City penalties and caught a 2-yard touchdown pass to tie the contest with no time on the clock. A made PAT sealed the Oakland win.

Carr, who was 6- of11 for 96 yards on the final drive and 29- of- 52 for 417 yards and three touchdowns overall Thursday, called the game the wildest of his career. Considering Carr’s career, that’s saying something.

“We were going through some hard times, but we stuck the course,” Carr said. “We kept going, we kept fighting.”

In an age where everything is quantifiable and brains seem to trump brawn, the truth is that heroics and belief stillmatter in sports.

And Carr, if nothing else, has shown time and time again — and again on Thursday — that he can play that all-important role of a hero.

Crabtree might have put that ineffable quality best, describing the final drive as a one-man show: “All we did was be there for him. He’s the captain. He’s the quarterback. He’s Derek Carr.”