OAKLAND, Calif. — Ever see a Carr stuck in reverse with the transmission slipping?
It is not a beautiful sight.
Look, we all knew the Oakland Raiders were not in for a swell Sunday afternoon at Coliseum. At this point, you no longer can even call their games against the Broncos an AFC West “rivalry.” A “rivalry” needs competition. The Broncos have won the head-to-head matchup six consecutive times, by an average score of 36-16. If this were college football, it might be time to discontinue the series.
Yet for Raiders fans in this dismal winless autumn, there has at least been the weekly dose of hope with rookie quarterback Derek Carr. Over the season’s first five weeks, Carr visibly improved game to game, leading up to his four-touchdown passing performance against San Diego in a narrow, three-point defeat.
That was back on Oct. 12. We regret to report that ever since, Carr’s improvement seems to have stultified. Against the Chargers, his passer rating was 107.7. Sunday in the 41-17 loss to Denver, the rating was 68.7, a tick better than his 66.5 rating a week earlier against Seattle.
You can charitably say that Carr has been trending downward. If that matters. Carr prefers not to consult any numbers.
“I don’t know the last time I looked at my own stats,” Carr said after Sunday’s loss. “This is the ultimate team game. All I care about, honestly, is winning.”
That part hasn’t been going so hot for him, either, as you may have noticed.
“He’s learning,” said Raiders offensive tackle Donald Penn. “But the bad thing is, he’s got to learn the hard way.”
Carr seems to be a solid personality, resilient and all that. He rips off his chin strap in anger when he makes a mistake, so he cares a lot. He plainly has the physical talent to succeed in the NFL and essentially, this Raiders season has become a developmental training camp for Carr.
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But if he winds up this season looking worse in December than he did in September, is that the desired result?
Sunday, the “hard way” for Carr consisted of being schooled by Denver’s defense while quarterback Peyton Manning shook off a rocky start to throw five touchdown passes. Carr threw two, although one was in garbage time. Carr still somehow took heart.
“The man across the way, he’s one of the best to ever do it,” Carr said, speaking of Manning. “He said it best, experience is the best. If I didn’t play today, I would never gain that experience of the coverages I saw, the different looks that I saw, the way people disguise coverages.”
Fair enough. But the disguises still are fooling him. After going two games without an interception, Carr has thrown four in the past two weeks — and that doesn’t include the goofy turnover he helped create by mistakenly throwing the ball to his own offensive lineman, Khalif Barnes.
“Good things happen to those who wait,” Carr said.
It would still be better to see him be patient while shifting back into forward gear. There are seven more weeks to see if he can make it happen.
