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The Devastation of Derek Carr: Injury Left Raiders Star QB Asking ‘Why?’
- Updated: January 5, 2017
It was the NFL horror story that ruined Christmas Eve.
Those who love the quarterback quit eating, quit celebrating, quit opening presents the moment his world came crashing down.
With one “Blue 80, set, hut!” and one sack that twisted him 360 degrees, Derek Carr laid on the turf, his eyes widened in terror and repeated, “It’s broke. … It’s broke. … It’s broke. …”
And nobody—not Raiders, not their fans, and certainly not those close to Carr—could grasp that reality.
A “Derek’s hurt” bombshell immediately lit up a group text message chain between his former Fresno State teammates. Neither former receiver Josh Harper nor former running back Robbie Rouse could believe what he was seeing.
“I was confused because I figured the game was out of hand,” Harper says (the score was 33-14 with about 11 minutes). “I got all the texts and said, ‘No way.'”
Rouse replied, “No, he’s not” and then flipped on his TV.
“I could just see the look in his eye,” he says. “It was really bad. How he got tied up? It was nasty.”
For a moment, Rouse thought he was dreaming. No way was Carr, this indestructible force, actually hurt.
Carr’s old college coach? Tim DeRuyter’s family was at his home in Fresno. All life drained from the room.
“To see it all come crashing down on that one play…” says DeRuyter with a pause and sigh. “You saw his leg underneath there? Horrible.”
One of Carr’s high school teammates and closest friends, Ryan Clanton, had watched his college quarterback at Oregon, Marcus Mariota, break his fibula earlier that day. His heart sank. About four hours later, Carr was writhing in pain. His heart sank again.
“I knew people who were there,” Clanton says, “and they said the whole stadium went quiet.”
Indeed, it did.
On the field. In the bowl. High up above inside a suite, too.
For Christmas, Carr made sure his two brothers, two parents and all the grandkids watched this game against the Colts from a private suite. They’d all celebrate a win together in holiday bliss. “Autumn Wind” would blend into “Jingle Bells,” and they’d eat dinner and open presents together as the strong Christian family they are.
When the TV monitor inside the suite zoomed in on Derek’s chilling reaction, older brother David alerted Dad, and everyone entered a state of shock.
This 2016 season had been sublime for Carr, for the Raiders, until Indianapolis’ Trent Cole went low on Carr and the script flipped.
“You could hear a pin drop,” says Rodger Carr, the father.
The Oakland Coliseum soon came back to life with chants of “M-V-P, M-V-P.” Rodger felt their “real passion and love” for his son.
Heather Carr, Derek’s wife, headed down to the locker room.
When she returned, she was crying.
She had never seen anything like this. Inside the locker room, after a 33-25 Raiders win, grown men were sobbing. One by one, teammates told Carr, “I love you” with a hug. One by one, Carr told them—tears in his eyes, too—”I love you, man,” sniffing through a “Come on, guys! Be happy!”
They all knew they’d go as far as Derek Carr would take them.
With one injury, the Raiders’ heart was ripped out. The NFL postseason turned on its head. A Raiders team that had not lost to a non-playoff team all year would go on to get blown out by a non-playoff team in Denver the next week. The Chiefs would pass them by to win the AFC West and earn a bye week. The Patriots’ path to their seventh Super Bowl since the 2001 season became a bit smoother.
The emotional swing was sudden and violent.
Moments after Carr hobbled off the field, owner Mark Davis was seen on the TV broadcast with binoculars yelling what appears to be, “Don’t throw the f–king ball!” Teammates cried. And that night, at 7:55 p.m., Carr posted a note on Twitter that read, in part: “I am not worried one bit” and “I will bounce back and be on my feet within no time!” and “This is a team sport! So everything WE want is still out there for us!”
Thank you! Joshua 1:9 pic.twitter.com/m6Zbhmm8Xh
— Derek Carr (@derekcarrqb) December 25, 2016
That’s true.
The Raiders are in the playoffs for the first time in 14 years. They’ll play at the Texans on Saturday afternoon. And when doctors told Carr his recovery would be 6-8 weeks, he did the math in his head.
Dad doesn’t want to hear the words “next season.”
“Dude, there’s the Super Bowl,” Rodger Carr says. “You know what I’m saying? Just a few more games. I know that’s going to be the driving force. For sure.”
Unfortunately, asking these Raiders to win three games is unrealistic.
Derek Carr was the driving force, and now he’s out.
Flash back to Dec. 4 in Oakland.
On this day, none of the Coliseum’s 54,759 tenants are thinking about a broken fibula. They don’t care that the stadium’s grimy tunnel is damp even though it never rained. They don’t care about the exposed piping lining the hallway ceilings.
(Seriously, pull one of those hanging wires and the whole structure will likely implode. This stadium has been treated with the tender love and care of a rundown studio apartment recycled on Craigslist.)
They don’t even care that the man in the white suit and $3 bowl cut might airlift his team to Las Vegas.
No, on Dec. 4 in Oakland, Derek Carr is their savior who demands full attention. He’s leading one of his seven fourth-quarter comebacks this season. Nothing else …
