The season is getting late. And the sun looks to setting on the Raiders’ playoff hopes. But it’s not dark yet. Currently the Raiders playoff chances are slim — five percent according to one calculation — and that’s enough of a glimmer of hope for quarterback Derek Carr. The trick for Carr over this week and potentially the next four weeks will be convincing his teammates to believe it.
“It’s a week-to-week league that’s for sure because one day they love you and the next they hate you,” Carr said Tuesday. . . “If anyone knows that, I know that. But letting our team know that, to keep that mindset. Look, it doesn’t matter if we win by a whole bunch of points or if we lose by a whole bunch of points, you win by a close game or lose by a close game, you always move on to the next game. I know it’s hard for people to comprehend, but that’s why we do what we do. That’s why we’re in the positions that we’re in because we have to compartmentalize a win or a loss, flush it and move on to the next thing. I think that for us to know that we’re still right there and we have four AFC teams that we play, two in the division. It’s not going to be easy, but you’re telling me that we have a chance. The way that we’ve come to work is we do have a chance and that’s a fact. But we have to win football games, that’s all that matters.”
I don’t know if Carr meant to nearly quote Lloyd Christmas from Dumb & Dumber there, but it kinda fits here. Though the line from the film is used with the odds of one-in-a-million. And people either quote it or post the GIF of it almost solely in sarcasm. Like this guy did to my quote tweet about the Browns placing eight players on reserve/COVID-19 list.
— Gabriel Martinez (@gabrielmartinez) December 14, 2021
The Raiders sit at 6-7 after starting the season 5-2, so the fans are expectedly working out their frustrations through snark. That doesn’t mean they have no hope, it just means it’s in short supply while cynicism far easier to come by.
For the players, like Carr, preaching hope is one thing, but practicing it is completely another. After all, the Raiders have lost five of their last six games, including the last two in which they scored a combined 24 points and they’re coming off an embarrassing and historically bad blowout loss to the Chiefs.
Just because it’s Carr who’s saying this, doesn’t mean he’s cracked the code on putting all losses behind him and focusing solely on the task at hand. No part of the Raiders has played worse than the offense and he’s obviously had a large hand in that.
That being said, he’s not wrong. The playoff has been wide open for a while and still not a single team has clinched a playoff spot. Just one game separates the Raiders at 12th and the seven seed in the AFC. Despite the lack of evidence of late the Raiders can somehow just turn it back on, if, hypothetically speaking, they could, the road back is possible.
That road is a rough one, though. It features four teams who all currently have winning records — Cleveland (7-6), Denver (7-6), Indianapolis (7-6), and LA Chargers (8-5).
Cue Lloyd Christmas.