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New-look Derek Carr finally getting his due as a top-shelf NFL QB?

Don’t hold your breath. He’s the Kenny Anderson of this generation, in that no matter how well he plays he just can’t get the love

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Maybe it’s his hair, which he’s growing out from a crew-cut for the first time since he was a kid.

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But could it be that a new-look Derek Carr, finally, is earning his due as a top-shelf NFL quarterback?

Possibly. Just don’t hold you breath.

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Carr’s smoking-hot start to the 2021 NFL season won’t convince many of his critics he’s The Guy to lead the Raiders back to the Super Bowl. Just won’t. Because nothing will, probably.

On Sunday, Las Vegas can improve to 3-0 on the young season at home against the wobbly Miami Dolphins (1-1). And the biggest reason the Raiders are 2-0, and not 0-2, is because of the expert play of Carr — the eighth-year pro who, it seems, is destined to be one of those quarterbacks, who has made the grade but can’t ever seem to earn the commensurate praise.

Sorta like Ken Anderson of the Cincinnati Bengals a generation ago.

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Jon Gruden, now in Year 4 of Stint 2 as Raiders head coach, is beyond tired of defending Carr. Just last Sunday, following Las Vegas’ impressive 26-17 victory at Pittsburgh, you could practically absorb Gruden’s frustration when he said of Carr’s role in that win:

“I just let his performance speak for itself. I’ve been clamouring about Derek Carr since I’ve been here. Hopefully, he gets some recognition for doing what he did today. He had some long drives (and) he was big again at the end of the game, against two great defences, two weeks in a row.”

The first game to which Gruden referred came just six days earlier, at home, in a thrilling 33-27 overtime win over Baltimore in the Monday Night Football curtain-raiser.

“(Carr) is a big reason why we’ve been able to win,” Gruden said.

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Thing is, it’s not new. Yet since the middle of last decade Carr annually has heard the same old stuff, the same dogged criticisms, from a sizeable chunk of the Raiders’ fan base, and from NFL fault-finders in general.

That he’s too nice a guy, and not good enough a leader or passer, to restore this once-storied — but still in-your-face-proud — franchise back to its rightful place among perennial AFC powers.

It doesn’t seem to matter that the Raiders by and large have been talent-starved at crucial positions, especially on defence, for years. Some doubt he’s even ‘the guy’ (no capital letters intended) to scrounge the club’s first playoff win since January 2003.

All this was first said of Carr during his rookie NFL season in 2014, when he was a late pre-draft riser from Fresno State University, whom the Raiders selected 36th overall early in Round 2 — as the fourth QB drafted that year, after Blake Bortles, Johnny Manziel and Teddy Bridgewater. Some said it was a reach.

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Carr possesses a super-fast release, and in college he was prolific in three years of starting, throwing for 113 touchdowns against just 24 interceptions … yeah, but at Fresno Friggin’ State. Who ever saw him play?

It didn’t help Carr upon reaching the NFL that he lost his first head coach, the fired Dennis Allen, just four games into his rookie season, then said bye to Allen’s interim replacement Tony Sparano three months later.

Quiet grumbling about Carr continued during Jack Del Rio’s rollercoaster three seasons as head coach, 2015-17, even though Carr was named to the Pro Bowl all three years, after throwing for a combined 82 touchdowns against just 32 interceptions, and even though Carr did lead the Raiders to the playoffs in 2016; but he broke his right leg on Christmas Day and missed the then-Oakland Raiders’ wild-card playoff loss at Houston.

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It’s the franchise’s only post-season appearance since the 2002-season Super Bowl.

From the moment in 2018 when Raiders owner Mark Davis lured Gruden back as head coach, the clamouring for a new quarterback to replace Carr got louder.

Same thing when Gruden lured Mike Mayock from NFL Network to become his GM two years ago.

Gruden and Mayock are beyond tired of repeating what every one of Carr’s head coaches and GMs on the Raiders has more or less expressed in public since 2014 — ad nauseum, and in vain. That is, that DEREK CARR IS EASILY GOOD ENOUGH TO QUARTERBACK THIS OR ANY TEAM TO A SUPER BOWL.

In part, perhaps, the dearth of love for Carr emanates from the fact he’s the younger brother of one of the biggest draft busts in modern NFL history, David Carr — the No. 1 overall pick in 2002 who, in five seasons of quarterbacking the expansion Houston Texans, threw way more interceptions (75) than touchdowns (59), was at the helm for way, way more losses (56) than wins (23), and who ultimately never came close to turning the corner, let alone justifying his draft selection.

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Ah, but this Carr is different. Same make, different model.

Whether he ever does leave the Raiders to a Super Bowl, Derek Carr has shown he’s worthy of the faith Gruden and Mayock have steadfastly placed in him.

Carr had his best season as a pro last year, even if not every bellwether statistic reflects as much. He has carried over that play into 2021. Entering Week 3 the 30-year-old leads the NFL in pass yards (817, or 408.5 per game) and is tied for third in completions (62). It’s not that this year’s Raiders want to pass that much; it’s that they’ve had to.

The Raiders so far have been without starting running back Josh Jacobs (ankle) and their offensive line remains short-handed. Starting guard Richie Incognito, for instance, has yet to play (calf).

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With the Ravens and Steelers as their first two opponents, Carr said the Raiders knew that the path to victory was not on the ground.

“You’re missing a superstar in Jacobs, the O-line is banged up, and all these kind of things,” Carr said. “The AFC North, they want to stop the run. So I knew we would have to throw it to have a chance to win.”

Carr now has three legit receiving threats in superstar seventh-year tight end Darren Waller and budding second-year receivers Henry Ruggs III and Bryan Edwards. Carr is finding them all over the field, especially deep. That’s why Carr has so many pass yards in each outing since Week 16 of last season. Indeed, if he throws for 325 yards against Miami he’d become only the fourth player in NFL history with as many yards in five consecutive games.

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“I just like execution,” said Gruden, the Raiders’ chief offensive architect. “We were good on third downs last year, we were good in the two-minute drill, we were good at scoring … Ya have to get excited about something. There’s enough negativity out there to kill any rat right now.”

Carr came out of the Pittsburgh game with an ankle injury that Gruden initially said put Carr’s status for Miami up in the air. By Wednesday, though, Carr explained why no one need worry whether he’ll play — and in so doing revealed, perhaps, why the constant waves of negativity and criticism don’t bother him much.

He’s a relentlessly positive-minded individual.

“It’s definitely a mentality,” he said Wednesday. “Any injury that you have, the first thing your coaches ever ask is, ‘Are you going to be ready on Sunday?’ And your first response to that is where you set your mind. Y’know, ‘Ah, coach, I’m going to try my best,’ or, ‘Ah, I don’t know, we’ll see.’

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“Or, it’s, ‘YES I’m playing.’ It’s (a different way) of setting your mind to know that no matter what it is — a groin, a back, a thumb, an ankle, a knee, whatever I’ve had — the first response is, ‘Absolutely I’m playing.’

“And now every decision that I make in rehab, and on the field, and all that, is to make sure that I’m ready to play on Sunday. Whereas if you’re up in the air … you’ve already lost the battle in your mind.”

Carr said the Raiders don’t lack for confidence right now. But given the club’s lack of a recent playoff history, it means nothing.

“It’s not enough until you go to the big dance and you win the last game. It just won’t be enough,” Carr said. “That’s the culture that Coach Gruden is trying to create here, and I think it’s something we’ve bought into, and hopefully we can sustain it through the season.”

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As it happens, Carr played at Fresno State along with all-pro Green Bay Packers wide receiver Davante Adams.

Carr said Adams was so shocked by the QB’s new look — actual, comb-able hair on his head beyond stubble — that he “offered to have a barber sent to my house, because he’s so used to the buzz-cut.”

And because he was so worried about whether Carr was, well, all right. But not to worry.

“I’ve had everyone reaching out about my hair now, because I haven’t had my hair this long since literally I was, like, 13 years old. And everyone’s freaking out, like, ‘WHAT’S WRONG?!’ But nothing is wrong.

“I just decided I didn’t want to cut it, honestly. It was one day during camp. I was like, ‘I’m too tired. I don’t want to cut it.’ And I was like, ‘Aww, from now on I might as well grow it out.’ ”

Who says it’s the same old Carr?

JoKryk@postmedia.com

@JohnKryk

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