Derek Carr says 'I'd have been out there' when asked if Raiders had advanced to Super Bowl

ALAMEDA, Calif. -- Derek Carr, trudging along on a scooter and wearing a protective boot on his right leg, was hurting physically and emotionally, yet he thumbed his nose at convention Sunday.

Carr, who suffered a broken fibula in his right leg in Week 16, insisted he would have been back to play in the Super Bowl had the Oakland Raiders advanced to the title game on Feb. 5.

"Absolutely," Carr said at the team facility in meeting beat reporters for the first time since suffering the injury on Dec. 24. "Yeah. Like everyone was telling me, 'No chance. Unlikely. Not gonna happen.' All these things. That didn't mean anything to me, and I'd say 'OK, thanks.' I'd have been out there."

The Raiders' season, though, came to an abrupt halt with Saturday's 27-14 loss at the Houston Texans with rookie QBConnor Cook making his first start a week after dressing for a game for the first time.

A week earlier, with the AFC West division title on the line, Oakland lost at the Denver Broncos with Matt McGloin at quarterback and fell to 12-4 and a wild-card spot. McGloin hurt a shoulder in that game and Cook took over before halftime.

Carr, who underwent surgery three days after the injury in Los Angeles, would not elaborate on what hardware was in his leg. Nor, despite saying he'd be ready for Super Sunday, did he have a timetable for this offseason.

"I'll never do that," Carr said. "I can give you good news, that it's going a lot faster than what everyone thought. I see like doctors on Twitter tagging me, they don't have a clue what's going on. It's weird. With no X-rays or MRIs they've figured it out.

"If he can do that, he shouldn't be on Twitter. He should be working at Stanford or something, I don't know. I just think that that stuff is funny. But he's just doing his job, I guess."

With Carr, the Raiders got off to a 12-3 start and were a chic pick to go to the Super Bowl. Without him, the team looked deflated and injuries mounted. The Raiders were outscored 62-20 after Carr's injury.

Carr, a league MVP candidate, was asked if, while watching these playoffs, he'd ask himself, "What if?"

"Yes, because I'm human," he said. "Yeah, absolutely. I said, 'What if?' I said, 'Why?' A lot, in the last two weeks. But I can promise you, I've been the same person. It's obviously hurt me. Some days, I've been really down and sad, but it doesn't change who I am. It just hurts, man.

"It just hurts because I love our team. I love our coaches. I love the fans. I love playing this game. God blessed me with a right arm -- thankfully, because I don't know what else I'd do -- to throw a football. I love playing this game so I think that's the part that hurts the most because I just wanted to be out there. But, we'll be back."

Cook struggled mightily against the Texans, completing 18 of 45 pass attempts for 161 yards with one touchdown and three interceptions for a passer rating of 30.0.

He had a fan in Carr, though.

"He won't ever be in a tougher situation than he was then," Carr said. "His first action, real being-the-starter action, was in the playoffs against the No. 1 defense on paper in football. It will never be harder for him and I told him that. I said, 'Bro, you made great throws. I saw your decisions even though not a lot of people could see it. I saw what you were doing ... don't lose any confidence at all.'

"Because I see it in him every day. I've seen how much better he's gotten since he got here. He's going to be a great player in this league. I'm not worried about him. I told him, 'Whatever you do, just don't lose confidence because you can't be in a harder situation than playing those guys for your very first time.'"

Carr went through a similar rough beginning, starting out 0-10 as a rookie before last season's 7-9 finish and then this season's 12-3 start.

That's why, Carr said, using the disappointment of how this season ended as fuel for next season is key.

"It sucks," Carr said. "There's a game going on the TV right now that makes me sick. I wish I was playing. Actually that's my buddy Davante [Adams, from the Green Bay Packers and Fresno State] playing. I'm happy for him, but it still sucks at the same time. I'm going to sit back, reflect on it, and know that, hey, it's not easy to win 12 games in this league. Who knows if we'll do it again? Hopefully we do. That's the plan. We want to win all of them. That is not an easy thing.

"The fact that we were able to do that is exciting, but like I said, there's so much more to get better at and work on, that that thing in our stomach that makes us sick, and makes us angry is going to propel us moving forward so we can compete and be better versions of ourselves."