Derek Carr and Oakland Raiders look to solidify gains and become ‘road warriors’

Coach Jack Del Rio wants the Oakland Raiders to get to place where they can 'be very purposeful and go in there and be able to impose our will on the opposing team'.

Oakland Raiders quarterback Derek Carr shown celebrating after the team's NFL win over the Baltimore Ravens last Sunday. Ben Margot / AP / September 20, 2015

Fresh off the most productive game of his young career as the starting quarterback for the Oakland Raiders, Derek Carr now wants to do something he hasn't accomplished yet in the NFL.

Win on the road.

Carr hopes his career-high 351 yards passing, three touchdowns and last-minute comeback to beat the Baltimore Ravens last weekend are signs of what the Raiders are capable of offensively if they just stick to the game plan and execute.

“It just showed us what we can be if we just do our job and don’t try and do extra things and don’t make the game too big,” Carr said Wednesday. “If we just go out and do what we do, just like we do in practice, we saw we can score points against one of the best teams in the league.”

The Raiders were counting on Carr to take a big step forward in his second year at quarterback with the additions of play-making receivers Amari Cooper and Michael Crabtree.

A slow start and a bruised hand cut short his opener after less than a half, but Carr showed big signs of progress against a Ravens defence that had shut down Peyton Manning and the Denver Broncos a week earlier. Now the key will be to carry that over this week in their first road game.

“Clearly, there’s an advantage to playing at home, but we want to be road warriors,” coach Jack Del Rio said. “We want to be the kind of team that can travel well and play in any kind of conditions, any kind of weather, any kind of crowd, and just be very purposeful and go in there and be able to impose our will on the opposing team.”

Winning on the road and putting good games together back-to-back have been a problem of late for the Raiders.

Oakland have lost 11 straight road games and 19 of their past 20. The Raiders haven’t won consecutive games since 2012, getting outscored by more than 21 points per game following their last nine wins.

But the Raiders aren’t worried about the past.

“Like coach has been saying, this team hasn’t played on the road yet.” Carr said. “We haven’t gone out there and done it yet. It’s a new challenge for us. It’s a new excitement. We saw what it takes to win in this league against a good football team, the effort it takes all week, the film room all week. As long as we can take that, we just have to fly somewhere to play the game.”

Carr’s only 300-yard passing game before last week came last season against the Cleveland Browns. But that performance was far less efficient than the one that beat the Ravens with Oakland’s highest-scoring game since 2010.

Carr threw for 328 yards on 54 passes but the offence produced just three scores and lost 23-13 in Cleveland last season. Oakland turned the ball over three times that game, making the mistakes that will cost a team on the road.

Despite the loss, Carr impressed the Browns, who expect an even better performance this season.

“He’s very poised, can make all the throws, good on his feet,” Browns coach Mike Pettine said. “He’s extremely accurate. You can see, he’s taken a big jump in year two.”

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