Derek Carr seizes his moment of truth, but job not done

Make no mistake, Derek Carr cherished the minor miracle that occurred Sunday night at Allegiant Stadium, and the role he played in it while orchestrating two overtime scoring drives to finally knock out the Los Angeles Chargers and punch the Raiders’ first ticket to the playoffs since 2016.

The gorilla-sized weight he shed from his shoulders wasn’t a bad feeling, either. And a big part of Carr feels pretty good about that right now. “It’s very nice,” he said.

It just isn’t the pinnacle one might expect it to be, even with all the criticism Carr has endured over the years and the unmistakable sense of vindication the last month or so has provided.

To put the achievement on that sort of pedestal would be disrespectful to the next leg of the journey. The fifth-seed Raiders play the Cincinnati Bengals on Saturday in a Wild Card playoff game.

By the time Carr left the exhilaration unfolding in the Raiders’ locker room to talk to reporters, it was the Bengals, and not the events of the previous four hours, that had all his attention.

Pulling a page from the late Kobe Bryant, for whom Carr is a dedicated pupil, he reminded everyone the Raiders’ season is essentially just getting started.

“It does feel good, it’s exciting,” Carr conceded. “But I don’t set out to just make the playoffs.”

With that, he shifted the Raiders’ focus from the immediate gratification they felt on Sunday to the bigger task at hand. “Job is not done,” he said, determinedly.

Carr’s ability to hold the Raiders together through one of the most tumultuous seasons in recent memory — including the manner in which he steered their focus back to the next challenge after the wild celebration inside their locker room late Sunday night — cannot be undervalued.

In a season in which Carr finished top five in the NFL is passing yards with 4,804 while completing 68 percent of his passes, it was the work he did behind the scenes that had just as profound an impact.

In the span of three weeks, the Raiders lost their head coach, Jon Gruden, to a sudden resignation and endured the arrest and fatal car accident involving Henry Ruggs. At one point they lost five of six games and seemed destined for another lost season.

Star tight end Darren Waller was sidelined for five games with a knee injury. Second-year cornerback Damon Arnette was released after a video emerged with him brandishing a gun and making verbal threats. It felt like one thing after another.

“I don’t think any team has been through what we’ve been through in 10 years, let alone one year,” Carr said.” So much emotion. Pick a story, you know?”

A handful of players emerged to help calm the various storms, but no one more so than Carr, whose role as the quarterback and eight years with the team organically created a leadership position. But it’s his approachability and easy manner that truly makes him a go-to source inside the locker room.

His natural ability to connect with all the various groups and cliques that develop in a locker room enabled him to deliver the needed messages and find willing ears.

The sense of togetherness that resulted helped keep the Raiders on task, even while the noise outside their building bristled with tumult.

“We went through some stuff, some refining, some hard times, but we locked the doors every day on Monday, and the people that were inside that building didn’t stop believing in this.” Carr said.

For Carr, there is great satisfaction in that.

“To see where we were at, everything we went through, and to still make it, this was the coolest thing to see,” he said. “This team came together and was able to still decide that this is what we wanted to do. It’s a cool feeling, that’s for sure.”

But it is still just the beginning. “I’m thinking about the next team we got to play,” Carr said.

Contact Vincent Bonsignore at vbonsignore@reviewjournal.com. Follow @VinnyBonsignore on Twitter.