Written by Michael Silver at NFL.com
When it was all over, after the hometown hero’s ejection and the sideline spat and the four false endings and the fantastic finish, Derek Carr didn’t even want to go there.
The fourth-year quarterback had just led the Oakland Raiders to a dramatic, 31-30 victory over the Kansas City Chiefs, thrilling 55,090 fans at the Oakland Coliseum and a Thursday Night Football audience by completing a 10-point fourth-quarter comeback on a two-yard touchdown pass to Michael Crabtree with no time remaining. Yet what if the Raiders (3-4), a trendy preseason Super Bowl pick, had fallen to the AFC West-leading Chiefs (5-2) and suffered their fifth consecutive defeat in the process, with all sorts of accompanying messiness?
“I don’t even want to think about that — golly,” Carr answered as he removed his jersey at his locker, accentuating the last syllable for emphasis like Gomer Pyle back in the day. “You’re gonna make me cry.”
Instead of that hypothetical hellfire, Carr preferred to focus on the reality of a magical evening on which his heroics made the Raiders’ coaches, players and extremely tense fans smile like adolescents on the last day of school. And with good reason: Suddenly, all of Oakland’s recent turmoil, some of it tracing back to the first half of Thursday’s game, faded into the background, as the Raiders savored a victory they believe could signify the first of the rest of their 2017 season.
Or, as Marshawn Lynch told me as he sliced through the Oakland locker room with half of his face covered by a scarf: “S— … we needed that one.”
Ya think?
Lynch, the former Seattle Seahawks star who ended his year-long retirement to play for his hometown team — largely in response to the NFL’s approval of the franchise’s move to Las Vegas for the 2020 season — certainly appreciated the outcome. Having struggled since a strong performance in the Raiders’ season-opening victory over the Tennessee Titans, the powerful running back was used sparingly in the first 21 minutes of Thursday’s game, carrying just twice for nine yards.
Then, following a play for which he wasn’t even on the field, Lynch finally made an impact. After Carr was stopped nine yards short on a third-down quarterback draw, Chiefs cornerback Marcus Peters, an Oakland native with whom Lynch has been extremely close since childhood (and to whom he refers as his cousin), came in late and lit up the passer with the $125 million contract who was recently sidelined by a transverse process fracture in his back. That set off a scrum between numerous players on both teams, including Peters.
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