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NFL Winners and Losers: Without Derek Carr, Raiders' season has become a tragedy

Oakland Raiders fans suffered for years and years, hoping for a season like this one.

Now, the entire season seems like a cruel joke, a tease that will end in terrible heartbreak.

The Raiders are going to the playoffs, and after a postseason drought that dated back to the 2002 season, you’d think that would be incredible no matter how it ended up. But we can all see where it’s headed.

The Raiders looked awful on Sunday in a 24-6 loss to the Denver Broncos. If there was any blind optimism that Derek Carr wouldn’t be missed that much, that’s done now. The offense did nothing with Matt McGloin at quarterback, then McGloin was knocked out of the game with a shoulder injury. Rookie Connor Cook came in and didn’t look overmatched, but it’s hard to believe the Raiders are going very far with him this season.

Matt McGloin was knocked out of Sunday's game with a shoulder injury. (AP)
Matt McGloin was knocked out of Sunday’s game with a shoulder injury. (AP)

The Raiders needed a win, or a Kansas City Chiefs loss, to get the AFC’s No. 2 seed and an AFC West championship. The Raiders lost, the Chiefs won and now the Raiders have to go on the road to open the playoffs on Saturday. It’s amazing how quickly their season turned.

Carr was playing at a near-MVP level when he broke his leg last week, so it’s not a surprise the Raiders don’t look like the same team. But it has to be depressing for Raiders fans to see how dramatically it all changed. The Raiders were one of the best teams in football in the NFL before Carr went down, and a legitimate Super Bowl contender. They’ve been outscored 35-6 in a little less than five quarters since Carr was hurt. They were dominated Sunday by a Broncos team that was eliminated from playoff contention last week and had nothing to play for beyond sending head coach Gary Kubiak out a winner.

The good news is the Raiders have a winnable playoff opener. They’ll play Saturday afternoon at the Houston Texans, who aren’t very good and have their own quarterback issues, especially after Tom Savage suffered a concussion on Sunday. Texans coach Bill O’Brien didn’t commit to Savage or Brock Osweiler as his playoff starter after Sunday’s game. The Raiders might be stumbling into the playoffs, but their first opponent has its problems too.

Even if the Raiders win their first game, the team we saw in the fourth quarter against the Indianapolis Colts after Carr’s injury and on Sunday against Denver isn’t going to win at New England or Kansas City in Round 2. Maybe they can adjust and get over the shock of losing Carr and rally in the playoffs, but it looks unlikely. The quarterback situation is a mess, after McGloin went 6-of-11 for 21 yards. Cook was 14-of-21 for 150 yards, but it’s either have a rookie make his first career start in a playoff game or go with the injured option who just averaged 1.9 yards per attempt in his first start since 2013.

Raiders coach Jack Del Rio sounded like he was leaning toward McGloin if he’s healthy, according to Vic Tafur of the San Francisco Chronicle. Ian Rapoport of NFL Network said the team isn’t optimistic McGloin will be healthy enough to start, though. No matter who starts, it’s not ideal.

Rookie Connor Cook threw his first TD pass of the season on Sunday but also turned the ball over twice via fumble and an interception. (AP)
Rookie Connor Cook threw his first TD pass of the season on Sunday but also turned the ball over twice via fumble and an interception. (AP)

This isn’t how this great story was supposed to end. Raiders fans will always wonder what would have been had Colts pass rusher Trent Cole not broken Carr’s leg on a sack. And while it’s reasonable to assume the Raiders will be contenders again next season, you never know. Nobody figured a year ago that the Broncos, Panthers and Cardinals would miss the playoffs this season. Nothing is guaranteed from year to year in the NFL.

The Raiders are finding that out this season after a ridiculous 12-3 start. Now they head into a playoff game looking nothing like the team that built that great record, thanks to the unluckiest injury of the season.

Here are the winners and losers from Week 17 of the NFL season:

WINNERS

Gary Kubiak: After Sunday’s game, Kubiak told his players he would retire, according to multiple reports. His players had to know long before they kicked off in Week 17, since news broke on Sunday morning that he’d step down. The Broncos seemed to want to send him out in style, and did so with a dominant win over the Raiders.

If this is it for Kubiak, he ends his career 82-75 as a head coach. Of course, the first sentence of his football story will include that he led the 2015 Broncos to a Super Bowl 50 championship. In his career as a head coach and coordinator, he consistently fielded efficient offenses with strong running games. This season didn’t go as he or the Broncos expected, but he steps away with the legacy any coach hopes for, as a champion.

Michael Floyd: Maybe it’s unfair that Floyd ended up getting this great opportunity. He was cut by the Arizona Cardinals after being arrested for DUI. He went from a Cardinals team going nowhere to a New England Patriots team that is a Super Bowl favorite. A DUI arrest doesn’t seem like something you should be rewarded for.

Floyd is making the most of his opportunity, however. He bulled his way into the end zone through multiple Miami Dolphins defenders for a 14-yard touchdown. He added a crushing block to spring Julian Edelman for a 77-yard touchdown.

It also might be unfair that Floyd’s mistake ended up being such a windfall for the Patriots. But it’s incredible that no other team in playoff contention took that minimal risk on Floyd. And everyone wonders why they can’t catch the Patriots.

A couple of MVP candidates: The MVP race this season is wide open, with good arguments to be made for four candidates. Two of them made strong final statements Sunday.

In the early games, New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady put the final touches on an outstanding season for himself and his team. Brady’s 28-2 touchdown-to-interception ratio is the best in NFL history. The Patriots went 11-1 after he came back from suspension.

It will be hard to overlook Atlanta Falcons quarterback Matt Ryan. With the Falcons playing for a first-round bye, Ryan threw for 331 yards and four touchdowns in a win over the New Orleans Saints. He finishes the season with 4,944 yards, 38 touchdowns, seven interceptions and a higher passer rating than Brady (Ryan’s 117.1 is the fifth-best in NFL history). Ryan deserves the MVP, but we’ll see if voters agree.

Drew Brees: It happened in a loss, but Brees added even more lines to his Hall of Fame résumé. He won his seventh passing title, and he already held the NFL record with six. He finished this season with 5,208 yards, the fourth-best mark in NFL history. Brees now owns five of the nine 5,000-yard seasons in NFL history, and has a 4,952-yard season too. On the all-time single-season yardage list he ranks second, fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth, 11th and 15th. That’s incredible.

It’s too bad the Saints haven’t done very well putting a competent roster around Brees, because he’s having one of the greatest careers of any quarterback who has ever played the game.

LOSERS

Kirk Cousins: Cousins is still going to get paid this offseason, despite his flop on Sunday. Quarterbacks are too hard to come by for him to not get paid in full. And if the Washington Redskins let Cousins go – it’s practically unprecedented in NFL history for a team to let a quarterback of Cousins’ age and stature hit free agency – then someone will gladly pay him.

But Sunday won’t help the perception of Cousins.

Despite a good season that included 4,917 yards, Cousins shrank when it mattered most. The Redskins needed to win to make the playoffs, and looked terrible against a New York Giants team that already had its playoff seed clinched. The Redskins were shut out until late in the third quarter. When they had a chance to at least tie the game and send it to overtime, Cousins threw a back-breaking interception. Washington lost 19-10 and was eliminated from the playoff race.

Cousins’ reputation is that he mostly plays big against bad teams and doesn’t do as well against the better teams on the schedule. Sunday’s performance won’t help that.

Los Angeles Rams: Here’s how Jared Goff’s seven starts went …

– Last-minute loss to the Dolphins
– 28-point loss to the Saints
– 16-point loss to the Patriots
– 28-point loss to the Falcons
– 21-point loss to the Seahawks
– Last-minute loss to the 49ers, who had lost 13 in a row
– 38-point loss to the Cardinals

A first overall pick at quarterback should generate excitement, right? The opposite of that happened to the Rams. Goff looked really bad in his seven starts and there shouldn’t be much excitement at all for the Rams going into the offseason. Maybe a shiny new coach will generate some buzz, but Los Angeles can’t feel too happy about the product it just watched.

Not that many watched on Sunday.

The Rams had 123 offensive yards on Sunday. Amazingly, in four of their past five games, they failed to crack 200. There are reasons the Rams will be an attractive job for interested candidates. But a lot of work needs to be done.

San Francisco 49ers, and whoever their fourth coach in four seasons will be: Is there a less attractive head-coaching job than the 49ers’?

Championships that were won 30 years ago don’t really matter to coaching candidates. Those glory days are long gone and have nothing to do with the current 49ers. What you have now is a franchise that has fired two straight coaches after just one season, after shoving Jim Harbaugh out the door because … well, nobody has figured out why.

It wasn’t a surprise when Chip Kelly got fired after a 2-14 season. The 49ers were a mess, and the Kelly NFL experiment seems to be over for good. But the 49ers have nothing to offer now, other than that the head-coaching job is one of 32 in the world, even if it ranks 32nd. There’s painfully little talent on the roster. Owner Jed York is not exactly helping anything. It’s not like a team that sat on its hands and a mountain of salary-cap room in free agency this past offseason is going to start handing out big money. Whoever takes over for Kelly will be the 49ers’ fourth coach in four seasons, so there’s no patience or stability to sell candidates.

The 49ers’ job seems like a career killer. Things can turn around fast in the NFL, but good luck to whoever takes this vacancy. You’ll need it.

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Frank Schwab is the editor of Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!