Like Kobe and Steph, Raiders find a way

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — He grew up a Kobe fan, and while that may not be what people in Northern California want to hear, the background is understood and acceptable. Derek Carr figures anything is possible in sports.

That the way Kobe Bryant brought the Lakers from behind, well, why couldn’t Carr and his teammates do the same?

Even after blowing a big lead. Even after Carr, the Raiders quarterback, the Raiders leader, injured his throwing hand and was unable to take snaps from the center in the old T-formation but had to play out of the shotgun.

Yes, the Raiders won another one on Sunday at the Coliseum, going way ahead, falling behind and then, just when you wondered if a season that so far has been magical and almost mythical was about to come apart, wondered if the Raiders were to revert to the bad old days, did their Kobe.

Or, making it more appealing, their Steph and Klay. Or more accurately, their Derek and Khalil Mack.

Oakland beat the Carolina Panthers, 35-32, a fifth straight win. They beat the Panthers after flying home Monday night from Mexico City, where Oakland defeated Houston. They beat the Panthers after building a 24-7 lead and then falling behind 32-24 — meaning Carolina scored 25 points in succession.

They beat the Panthers after proving that indeed the Raiders will offer no excuses, only persistence.

“What a great victory here at home against a really good football team,” said head coach Jack Del Rio, who sounded very much like one of the sellout crowd at the Coliseum. “Just proud of our guys for hanging in there and finding a way. That’s been a theme for us this year.”

A theme and a pattern. Five comeback victories. The team that once was unable to win, now, Kobe-like, Steph-like, Derek Carr-like, will not lose. The words of Al Davis float in the breeze, to wit, “Just win, baby.” And in nine of their 11 games this season, they’ve just won. Baby.

Such a bizarre game. Such a typical NFL game. Carolina couldn’t do anything in the first half, gaining just 89 yards total. Awful. Then the Raiders couldn’t do anything to stop Carolina.

“The third quarter was really tough,” agreed Del Rio, “and then we came back and finished.”

Carolina has been a mystery team. In the Super Bowl last season, a bust this season at 4-7, losing games but with Cam Newton at quarterback and other stars loaded with talent. The Panthers suddenly came together, with Newton throwing to Ted Ginn for a touchdown on an 88-yard play and to Kelvin Benjamin for a TD on a 44-yard play. Fortunately, the Raiders did not come apart.

“I thought there was a stretch where things were kind of unraveling a bit,” said Del Rio. “I actually tried to make sure to say, ‘Hey, let’s remember, if we keep fighting and keep believing, we’ll go from there. Then whatever happens, we can deal with it.’ I thought we snapped out of that and got our energy back.”

And got their quarterback back.

And never were without defensive end Khalil Mack, who had an interception and then a sack and recovered a fumble on the fourth-down play that, with a minute to go, would close it out for the Panthers — and thus for the Raiders.

Mack became the first player with a sack, interception, forced fumble, fumble recovery and a touchdown since Charles Woodson in 2009. And digressing, the TD off the interception was oh-so-similar to that of Jack Squirek, picking Joe Theisman, in Super Bowl XVIII in January 1984.

Asked if he knew Mack was that agile, Del Rio insisted, “Yeah, he’s got good hands. He can throw it too. He can do just about anything he really wants.”

What Carr wanted was to get back in the game after the snap on the second play of the third quarter bruised the baby finger on his throwing hand and the subsequent fumble was recovered by the Panthers.

“A lot of pain,” said Carr. “Something happened with the snap. I don’t know what. I’ll have to see the replay. Something was different from normal.”

Carr put a glove on the hand, and the team doctors gave him the OK to replace Matt McGloin, who had replaced Carr. When Carr emerged from the tunnel, the crowd bellowed approval. Carr, although desperate to play, only wanted to bellow.

“Probably the most pain I’ve ever felt in my life,” he said.

He winced, he gritted, he and the Raiders triumphed. Oakland clinching its first winning season in 14 years.

“I’m happy for the fans,” said Carr, who as a Californian — he played at Fresno State — knows the team’s history. It’s been painful, if in a different way from that baby finger.

“We’re learning how to win. I really believe that our identity is just a team that works hard and believes in one another.”

After Sunday, it’s possible to believe the Raiders are an excellent team.

Raiders smart, but Manziel would have been a story

By Art Spander

ALAMEDA, Calif. — The Raiders were wise and logical, employing their first-round pick Thursday to draft a linebacker who observers claim can do everything, much needed by a defense that could do very little.

Oh, if only the Raiders were less wise and more whimsical.

That Oakland took Khalil Mack of the University of Buffalo was both expected and well regarded.

Sporting journalists were resigned to the move while, sob, wishing instead for Johnny Manziel. It was to dream.

As the man who once ran the Raiders, the late Al Davis, told us in no uncertain terms, the idea is to “Just win, baby.” 

Since the Raiders have not just won for 11 consecutive seasons, the selection of Mack — who “could have been the No. 1 overall pick,” wrote one scouting service — indicates that the organization is intent on changing both its record and its culture.

Yet think of how much fun it would have been by the Bay had Oakland chosen Manziel, the quarterback known as Johnny Football and the only guy in the draft who mattered, according to ESPN, the organization that dictates our tastes in things athletic.

Did the Raiders need to use the No. 5 pick of the first round on a QB, especially one supposedly both undersized and undisciplined? Not at all. They smartly took Mack, excellent at bringing down the passer.

Those of us with long memories recall Al Davis maybe 30 years ago, perhaps more, saying in one of those NFL Films segments, “The quarterback must go down, and he must go down hard.”

That was before the NFL became a passing league.

So, all credit to Raider GM Reggie McKenzie and head coach Dennis Allen. “He understands how to rush the passer, and to rush the passer with power,” Allen said of Mack, who played at University of Buffalo.

Beautiful, but do Allen and McKenzie understand what makes a great story? We humble folk behind the microphones and laptops most certainly do.

Imagine Johnny Manziel with the Raiders, even as a backup, and Colin Kaepernick with the 49ers, who face Oakland in a league game during the fall.

Sports writers, columnists, TV reporters, radio reporters, ESPN, CNN, Fox, and even Al Jazeera would have been lined up from Santa Clara to the Golden Gate Bridge for interviews.

Sure, Kap doesn’t say very much, and Johnny Football would be a backup, but that’s beside the point. They’re famous, which is not beside the point as you note from recent sporting tales. Fame sells.

We could have tossed in Alex Smith and Aaron Rodgers, brought up JaMarcus Russell. Pride, poise and pronouns. How enthralling. Alas, how impossible.

Manziel looked like someone who had swallowed a whole lemon as, unable to avoid the cameras, he waited while the draft plodded along. He finally went at No. 22. Shades of Aaron Rodgers in 2005.

But the Rodgers story was primarily local. He was a Cal kid, and the Niners had the No. 1 pick in the draft. Mike Nolan decided on Smith. Rodgers, falling to 24th in the opening round, eventually went to Green Bay and subsequently to the Super Bowl, State Farm commercials and a promo ad for the new Seth Rogen movie, “Neighbors.” See how things grow?

We could have blown up this Kaepernick vs. Manziel thing to where that’s all anyone would have been talking about. No such luck. Johnny Football is stuck in Cleveland, where the probability is he won’t make anyone forget Otto Graham or even Tim Couch.

What the Raiders want to forget is the recent past, their failings on defense. You have to stop the other guys or it doesn’t matter if Joe Montana or Jim Plunkett is your quarterback.

Enter then, along with Oakland free agent signings Justin Tuck and LaMarr Woodley, Khalil Mack.

Nobody — nobody — had a discouraging thing to say about Mack. Just the opposite. “Mack may be the most complete defender in the draft,” wrote Chris Burke in a Sports Illustrated blog. “Even ahead of (Jadeveon) Clowney. Considering he is adept at rushing the passer, stuffing the run and dropping in coverage, working him into the mix should not be too difficult.”

It is waste of time to ask of a sporting organization if it likes the picks it makes in a draft. “If they didn’t like them,” John Madden often said, “they wouldn’t have made them.”

Still, McKenzie and Allen, beginning their third year with the Raiders, seemed especially joyful.

“He’s a real man,” said Allen of Mack. “He’s a football-first guy. And he’s got tremendous work ethic and he’s a team player.”

Agreed. But Johnny Manziel is a story. Sob.