The Raiders started the year 3-0, but any promises of future success that came with that opening have gone up in smoke over the last 10 games.
Sunday’s 48-9 loss to the Chiefs was the most lopsided in the long history between the teams and it moved the Raiders to 6-7 with four weeks left in the regular season. If current trends hold, it will be the fifth straight season that the Raiders miss the playoffs and that makes any talk of incremental progress a tough sell.
Quarterback Derek Carr still tried to go that route after the game, however. Carr said he thinks that the kind of losses that the Raiders have experienced this year will build the character that they need to win games in the future.
“Disappointment,” Carr said, via Anthony Galaviz of the Sacramento Bee. “Definitely disappointed. Most of our guys work really hard and try our very best to put good stuff on tape and win football games. I didn’t expect that outcome. During the game, after the first turnover, second, I didn’t expect that. I felt great what [offensive coordinator Greg Olson] was calling. We would execute to a certain level, but execution is all the way to the whistle and we didn’t do that. Togetherness. It’s all we got. We all know everybody is against us. It’s going to be hard and all that kind of stuff, but that’s what builds character. People would say, take wins over character any day, but I was like well you need to have good character to eventually get it right. I see good characters where guys are going around to one another and saying, ‘Hey, man, I got your back.’”
“Just build character” is a big difference from “just win, baby” and the current Raiders are nowhere close to the teams that built the Raiders’ reputation as a perennial contender when Al Davis was still alive. That will lead to major changes in the offseason and the focus will likely be on building a winner rather than on developing character through a long run of painful losses.
