The Raiders came into Sunday’s game against the Jets riding high after three straight wins, but they came out of it hanging their heads.
Losing 34-3 has a way of making that happen and the game was enough of a train wreck that Raiders head coach Jon Gruden decided to wave the white flag by pulling quarterback Derek Carr in the third quarter. Carr didn’t appreciate a question about how that felt during his postgame press conference -- “It was for other reasons than you’re to make it seem.” -- and he didn’t take kindly to any thought that Sunday’s loss redefined the Raiders season.
“You can look in some people’s eyes and some people react differently to getting punched in the mouth,” Carr said, via comments distributed by the Jets. “Sadly enough, I’ve been on some teams where we’ve had our fair share of getting hit in the mouth. As frustrating as it is, let’s be honest, these six games that we’ve won, no one thought we could do that with who we have. We’re still good at football. We’re still a good football team, but it is what it is. We’re still building that foundation. Hopefully today is one of those moments that wakes everybody up and we rally back together like we have this season and we keep playing.”
The Raiders will have to get things back together quickly as they’ll be in Kansas City to face the Chiefs next Sunday. Carr said that the Raiders “better show up or they’re going to beat us by 50" and it’s hard to argue with that logic after seeing the Jets mop the floor with them on Sunday.