THE RAIDERS HAD THEIR SHOT…
‘We sucked’: QB Derek Carr doesn’t try to spin team’s loss
The Raiders had a chance to prove something Sunday.
They could have buried their uninspiring and downright average opening 12 games of the season. They could have made everyone forget about the fact that luck, more than skill, was responsible for the 6-6 team’s share of first place in the AFC West.
They could have gone to the Show-Me State, beaten the Kansas City Chiefs for the second time this season, and proven that they were a real playoff contender, as so many expected them to be at the beginning of the 2017 season.
“Everything we wanted to accomplish in our season was in front of us,” coach Jack Del Rio told reporters after the Raiders lost 26-15. “It was a big day and a big moment.”
And?
“We didn’t play well.” Or, as quarterback Derek Carr bluntly (and accurately) put it: “We sucked.”
They did. But I’d say that’s more of the same for this Raiders team.
Don’t let anyone try to spin it: This wasn’t nearly as close as the final scoreline indicated.
It was an embarrassing display — a limp performance in a game that was as close to a must-win as any Week 13 contest could be — and another clear-cut case of why serious changes need to be made at all levels of the Raiders’ organization.
No, the Raiders haven’t technically been eliminated Raiders’ Marshawn Lynch gets tackled by Kansas City’s Reggie Ragland on Sunday.
from playoff contention, but what reason does anyone have to believe that this team will rise to the occasion and win their final three games of the season to give themselves even the remote shot of making the postseason?
The Raiders have now played three critical road games as underdogs — at Buffalo, vs. New England (in Mexico City), and at Kansas City — and have been blown out three times.
The Raiders can beat bad teams — they can stay with mediocre teams, too — but when this team needs to win and they have to play a good team outside of the Coliseum, they’ve been utterly overmatched.
They were again in Missouri:
Kansas City effectively won Sunday’s game with 3:22 left in the third quarter, after taking a 26-0 lead. At that juncture, the Raiders had 77 yards of total offense and fewer first downs than the Chiefs had scoring plays (six to four).
Forget the 191 yards and two touchdowns in garbage time — the Raiders real performance came in the first 42 minutes of Sunday’s game. That’s the one that should be remembered.
For a normal organization, a performance like that, parlayed with the disappointment of the team’s 6-6 start leading up to it, would prove to be the impetus for major changes — clearly, there are links broken on the Raiders’ chain — but there’s no guarantee that will be the case with this franchise.
So what happens next? There’s plenty of blame to go around, for sure, but the two most important people on an NFL team — the head coach and starting quarterback — are well-insulated from repercussions.
Jack Del Rio, who took over a laughingstock outfit and turned it into a respectable unit, cashed in after last year’s flukey 12win campaign, signing a four-year contract extension earlier this year.
It doesn’t matter that Del Rio has never proven that he can take a good team and make it great as a head coach, as was his task this season. Nor does it matter that he’s a defensive-minded (and handson) head coach and former linebackers coach who can’t put a good defense on the field or develop a good linebacker.
To fire Del Rio, Mark Davis, who handpicked Del Rio and rewarded him with a lucrative new deal in February, would have to first admit that he was wrong about the Raiders’ head coach and then eat a big chunk of cash that frankly, he might not have lying around.
Davis might be peeved about the Raiders’ lack of competitiveness, but can he swallow both a ton of pride and cash? I doubt it.
And Carr? We’re in the first year of a five-year, $125 million contract that was, for a while, the most lucrative in NFL history.
But behind one of the best-paid offensive lines and going up against one of the worst defenses in the NFL, Carr didn’t look worth $25,000 a year when the game was actually in the balance on Sunday.
He was skittish, unaware, and inaccurate, but that’s nothing new for him.
Still, the Raiders aren’t going to cut him or trade him — don’t be ridiculous. He’s the first worthwhile quarterback this team’s had since Carson Palmer, so he’s getting a free pass. WIth that huge contract, the Raiders have tied the franchise to Carr, for better or for worse.
So who is going to be held accountable for this perceived debacle of a season?
Underlings. Subordinates. Lackeys.
The kind of people you change out when you need to make a show but who can’t truly change the course of a franchise.
Perhaps there will be a shakeup of the team’s power structure, but that doesn’t truly matter.
Del Rio and Reggie McKenzie might not work in concert after this season, but since McKenzie isn’t without blame in the Raiders’ predicament either, what’s it matter who has the upper hand in that relationship?
The blunt truth is that without a great head coach and a great quarterback, you don’t stand much of a chance of being great in the NFL (unless you have a great head coach and a great defense, so that excludes the Raiders).
We’re now in year three of this Del Rio-Carr partnership and these two men are still yet to prove they’re anything more than average at their jobs but have been rewarded as if they’re amongst the elite in the NFL.
Maybe the duo of Del Rio and Carr can get this Raiders team over the hump in the years to come. Perhaps with expectations off their shoulders next season, they can show what they’re worthy of the Raiders’ faith and compensation.
But when the expectations were raised this season, both men wilted.