Raiders: Diving into Derek Carr’s 2021 Week 18 performance
By Sean Basile
Raiders: Diving into Derek Carr’s 2021 Week 18 performance
Overtime and Conclusion
In overtime, Carr missed Darren Waller on a 3rd & 3 just outside the red zone that would have gone for a TD and game over had he completed it. The Raiders settled for another field goal there.
And finally, we come to the Raiders’ final drive of the game where it’s knotted up at 32 apiece and Carr was facing a 3rd & 8 in his own territory just outside the two-minute warning.
This is where Derek made his best throw of the night to Zay Jones’s far shoulder near the out-of-bounds line. This set the Raiders up in plus territory to run out the clock and win the game on a field goal.
Carr made two really good throws in this game. The first was the second Renfrow touchdown, and then the other was the final Zay Jones throw he perfectly placed.
But unfortunately, what I mostly saw from him here was a fair amount of bailouts by the zebras, the Chargers beating themselves, and his running game carrying the load (Jacobs went for a season-high 132 rushing yards).
LA made a lot of crucially bad decisions, and although Carr did not totally waste away those mistakes, he also did not fully capitalize on them either.
I would give Derek a low B grade here, and I think that’s very fair. He won the game, he did not actively give the Chargers momentum by turning the football over, and he came through in a big spot with an outstanding throw to Jones.
But this was also a very so-so performance out of him based on the context of the game itself as well as what we have seen out of him at various other times this very season.
The good news is now he gets another opportunity to prove himself against a good Bengals team that already beat him this year. The bad news is, we still have not seen Carr fully satisfy his potential.