By Matt Schneidman
December 9, 2018
Derek Carrier catches the game-winning touchdown pass in the Raiders' 24-21 win over the Steelers on Sunday.
OAKLAND — Derek Carrier kept the ball he caught to give the Raiders a stunning comeback win, the ball that became only his seventh catch in 13 games when Derek Carr found the backup tight end on 4th-and-goal from 6 yards out with 21 seconds remaining. Carrier caught five passes in his first 12 games. His seventh catch of the year gave the Raiders a 23-21 lead over the division-leading Steelers as afternoon turned to dusk in Oakland on Sunday.
Carrier won’t keep the ball, though. He’ll give it to his newborn daughter, Dahlia, who his wife delivered five days before her husband made the biggest catch of his team’s season when his tight curl route and the Coliseum’s messy field conditions caused Steelers cornerback Mike Hilton to slip, leaving Carrier wide open. Sunday’s game was the first of seven home games Carrier’s mom and wife didn’t attend. Of course Carrier made the biggest play of his Raiders tenure without them in attendance, so he made a proclamation after the game.
“Now they just have to stay at home the rest of the season,” he said with a smile inside the Raiders’ locker room.
Carrier’s game-winning score capped off a banner day for Raiders tight ends in their 24-21 comeback win over the Steelers. Jon Gruden said after the game that tight ends coach Frank Smith deserves free chicken wings at Hooters. No. 1 tight end Jared Cook continued his Pro Bowl-worthy season with seven catches for 116 yards, reaching 825 yards on the season and eclipsing his previous single-season record for receiving yards (759 with the Titans in 2011) in now his 10th year. After the game Gruden declared Cook the team’s clear-cut MVP. No. 2 tight end Carrier caught the final go-ahead touchdown, and blocking tight end Lee Smith caught his second touchdown in as many weeks in the fourth quarter after not scoring in 2016 or 2017.
“I’m calling for Frank Smith to get a raise after that one,” Lee Smith said. ” … We have a veteran room. We’ve all been around a while. We know what our roles are. This is great … Derek scored today. Jared finding the end zone is a regular occurrence. I found a way to get in and help the team win. It was a momentum-shifter.”
The Raiders now sit in a three-way tie with the 49ers and Cardinals for the NFL’s worst record at 3-10. The 49ers upset the Broncos Sunday, so without Sunday’s fireworks the Raiders would’ve controlled their own destiny for the No. 1 pick instead of sitting third in the draft order on the strength of schedule tiebreaker. But open the double doors to the Raiders locker room, listen to two speakers blaring music throughout and it’s clear the Raiders don’t care where their team selects in April.
A sharp right turn inside the locker room revealed a sizable crowd around Cook, one so big that Carrier, despite catching the game-winning touchdown, was relegated to several lockers down for his postgame interview since there was no space in front of his own two to the left of Cook’s. Smith, who occupies the locker to Cook’s immediate left, waited until Cook finished to speak with reporters so he could move his limbs.
“That’s dope man, that’s super cool,” Cook said of his backups’ performances. “Those guys work their tails off to be here and to see those guys get rewarded for their hard work is great.”
Maybe it’s fitting for this miserable Raiders season that, when things finally go right, two sparsely used tight ends find themselves catching fourth-quarter go-ahead touchdowns and fielding questions from swarms of reporters.
“You forget about Derek and Lee quickly in the pass game,” Carr said. “There weren’t many plays designed for them in training camp. Lee is the blocker, the heavy guy and all those kind of things. Derek was playing in Jared’s spot, just behind him. I know now to throw to everybody during training camp and take every rep. It’s one of those things where it’s so fun to see guys like that come in the fourth quarter and get game-winning touchdowns.”
For the third straight week the Raiders trailed by only a score in the fourth quarter against an opponent favored by double digits. In Week 12, the Ravens turned a 20-17 fourth-quarter lead into a 34-17 victory. Last week, the Chiefs led 33-30 but the Raiders couldn’t complete their comeback in a 40-33 loss. On Sunday, the Steelers led 14-10 before Smith’s touchdown with 5:25 left. Then after Ben Roethlisberger marched the Steelers 75 yards in 2:25 to re-take the lead, the Raiders trailed again, this time 21-17 with 2:55 left and 75 yards until the end zone.
After a 14-yard completion to Cook sent the Raiders into Steelers territory, Carr dumped a perfect pass into Seth Roberts’ hands for a 39-yard gain to the 7-yard line. Four plays later, he found Carrier on fourth down as the yellow Terrible Towels stopped waving and the home contingent erupted. Carrier raised his left arm with the ball held high, then hoisted both in the air as Dwayne Harris jumped into his arms.
“As soon as that play was called, DC and I just smiled at each other because we had been working that for a while,” Carrier said. “It was exciting … just in terms of what we have been preaching as a team is resiliency. We definitely faced some adversity this year and just finishing strong and that’s exactly what we did today.”
So about that trip to Hooters for the tight ends coach…
Lee Smith said Frank Smith deserves a raise, and that he, Cook and Carrier would love playing for Smith the rest of their careers. Carrier chuckled at the idea of his position coach’s free chicken wings reward, but he can’t attend. He has a wife taking care of a 2-year-old boy and a newborn girl at home. Even a game-winning touchdown doesn’t excuse him from daddy duty.
But just as he did after his touchdown, he’ll hold that ball tight for his daughter, just as the Raiders will cherish a meaningful victory in an otherwise meaningless game.
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