Derek Carr May Be Willis Reed, But His Teammates Are Walt Frazier

The burning question from the Raiders’ 35-32 win over Carolina Sunday would have been, “Does last year’s team win this game?” if not for Michael Crabtree’s essential clarity on the subject.
 
“We’re gonna worry about THIS year, not the Raiders of the past,” he said.
 
And with that, Crabtree declared the end of the Thirteen Years Of Hell In A Cell, Football Division – with a come-from-ahead-and-then-behind victory that showed that for the first time in more than a decade, the Raiders as a collective let bygones truly be bygones.
 
Oh, you may want to debate what the biggest reason why the Raiders didn’t turtle in defeat when all the signs pointed in exactly that destination – whether it was Derek Carr’s heroics with only 80 percent of an operational right hand, or Khalil Mack’s pick-six and all-around disruptor’s game, or Crabtree’s sensational 49-yard grab-my-head-but-I-still-have-my-hands fourth quarter catch, or any of about 12 other pressure points that caused Oakland to overcome both Carolina and itself.
 
But the macro-fact is this: Having blown a 24-7 halftime lead in 13 minutes and allowing Carolina to score 25 consecutive points, these Raiders didn’t vomit all over themselves like so many of their predecessors would have done, and often did. They didn’t accept ignominious defeat and ritual shame-processing as their essential lot in life. They didn’t regard the fourth quarter as something just to get through so they could get home 20 minutes earlier.
 
In short, they earned the right to become perhaps the first team in NFL history to combine the victory formation with the shotgun formation – because that’s what this day demanded if the Raiders were to be taken seriously as a championship contender, and as a team of weak wills and faltering hearts no more.
 
Job done, and done well.
 
Carr’s history is that of a fourth-quarter scene stealer; this is the 10th fourth-quarter-or-later come-from-behind win in his 19 total wins, and his numbers when tied or trailing in the fourth quarter are absurd – 80-of-118, 1,109 yards, 10 touchdowns and one interception.
 
But he also has lost 24 games in his career as a whole, so those statistics, while jaw-slackening in isolation, don’t really have a lot of meaning until now, when the Raiders as a whole can actually benefit from them. After all, to torture the analogy, nobody wants to hear about how you tracked the deer – they only want to see the antlers.
 
But Carr didn’t win those games alone, and he certainly didn’t win this one himself, either. Mack and Crabtree were bigger standouts at bigger times, running back Latavius Murray’s impact belied his numbers, and the offensive line kept Carr safe from harm – unless you want to count center Rodney Hudson’s snap 42 seconds into the third quarter that turned the quarterback’s pinky into a Divided Road Ahead sign.
 
But he does get credit for not crumpling as the Panthers regained their own memories of competitive obstinacy from 2015. Carr was 10-for-15 for 176 yards and a touchdown before his pinky was mangled, and 11-for-18 for 141 and another score afterward. He did throw an ill-advised pass to Amari Cooper that Carolina linebacker Thomas Davis intercepted, and his absence also indirectly led to Matt McGloin being reduced to shards on a hit by Carolina safety Tre Boston, but he did not become fazed, let alone defeated.
 
Nor did the group as a whole. They didn’t do that old Raider thing, the one that lost them 70 percent of their games for 13 years (63-145, in case you need the math) in one of two ways – accepting defeat as their lot in life, or at best having defeat thrust upon them whether they liked it or not.
 
This is not that team, not any more. Oh, they may lose, and they may lose by a big number. But it won’t be because “same old Raiders.” It will be because they made the mistakes even good football teams occasionally make, or because they will have been flogged by a superior one.
 
Carr, though, is a terrible historian. When he was asked if this was a “Willis Reed moment,” a 46-year-old reference to the NBA Hall-of-Famer who gimped onto the floor in Game 7 of those Finals with a torn thigh muscle to inspire the New York Knicks to victory, he smiled as he typically does.
 
“You know what’s hilarious, my coach said Willis Reid to me on the sideline, just to get me to laugh and get me in the mood,” Carr said. “I looked at him and was like, ‘Who?’ What’s crazy is that I know who Willis Reed is. I mean, he came in and dropped like 40.”
 
In fact, Reed dropped like four. Actually, not “like” four, but four. He played 27 minutes, making his first two shots and never scoring again, while Walt Frazier went for 36, 19 assists and seven rebounds. But Reed is cited as the man who drove the Knicks to their first NBA championship by his ability to lift the Knicks from their essential Knick-hood.
 
Hey, narratives are what we want them to be. This may be remembered by many as the day Derek Carr overcame his pinky finger, but he is the Willis Reed part of the story. His teammates are the Walt Frazier, and together they broke a 13-year cycle of acquiescence.
 
The truth is, focus on Carr’s pinky if you must, but this is the day the Raiders showed a skeptical nation their collective spine.