EXT. LAS VEGAS RAIDERS SHARED HOUSE – DAY

Establishing shot and title card.

ANNOUNCER BETH MOWINS: Silver and Black Spoons [sic] is filmed in front of a thriving Scorpio [sic] audience.

CUT TO – “THAT’S MY RAIDERS” MULTI-CAMERA FILM STUDIO – DAY

The show’s film crew are all in their starting positions, and a palpable sense of anticipation can be felt.  The stage lights – initially dim – are brightened as someone enters through the house door at stage rear.  The studio audience explodes into hoots and hollers, but these noises of jubilation quickly fade to confused silence as they realize that the incredibly handsome man striding towards them is not a member of the cast, but instead a member of the show’s writing staff.

RIKKI-TIKKI-DEADLY: Hi folks.  I’m Rikki-Tikki-Deadly, one of the screenwriters for That’s My Raiders.  You might remember me as the writer of such Very Special Episodes as “We Can’t Sweep This One Under the Rugg” and “Why Does DeSean Jackson Hate the Weinsteins?”.  The producers have asked me to address the studio audience – as well as any and all football fans throughout the world – about what’s happening with Derek Carr right now.

As much as I’d like to tell you that I just checked and Derek is in his room, listening to Escape the Fate and screaming at us to “GO AWAY”, the reality is that he’s not there, and we’re not sure he’s every going to be there ever again.  Derek has asked to step away from set for the time being, and the producers of the show have agreed.  A lot of people are wondering what Derek’s future is here in the That’s My Raiders family, and the honest answer right now is that we simply do not know.

Over these nine years, our audience has come to know and love Derek like a brother.  And he’s worked as hard as anyone can reasonably be expected to make this show into a modest hit.  But it’s also important to remember that despite the sacrifices Derek has made – like skipping the Bring Me The Horizon secret show to hold the clipboard on the sidelines of a preseason game against the Falcons – he’s been unable to bring sustained success to the Raiders household.

Derek has had a lot of heroes in his lifetime.  His brother was a big one.  Robert Smith looms even larger.  But one of Derek’s biggest guiding lights was the self-proclaimed “Black Mamba” Kobe Bryant. He always admired Kobe’s willingness to take the reins and deliver – or at least attempt to deliver – in the clutch.  And Derek lived up to this legacy in a lot of ways – his record in overtime games is a stunning 9 and 2 (with one of those losses coming courtesy of a Hunter Renfrow fumble while Derek was driving the team into range for a game-winning field goal). But the one trait of Kobe’s that Derek never seemed to absorb was the disdain and contempt for his opponents that Kobe displayed.  Derek was never comfortable stepping on the throat of an opponent and humiliating them in front of their fans like Kobe was willing – and even enthusiastic – to do.

Oh, and also Derek never raped anyone.  That we know of.

It’s no secret that the NFL has worked particularly hard in the last several years, mostly via officiating, to ensure that most games remain competitive through the final whistle so as to maximize viewer interest – and therefore ad revenue.  It’s the same philosophy we use in our three-act structure of writing episodes for That’s My Raiders.  We don’t want anyone tuning out before the story gets resolved.  But that’s not something a player should be striving for.  Too often – and this season has been particularly egregious – the Raiders offense has gone limp in the second half of games when they’ve had an advantage.  In fact, Derek is so soft-hearted…[makes gesture at audience]

STUDIO AUDIENCE: …HOW SOFT-HEARTED IS HE?

RIKKI-TIKKI-DEADLY: …that in the sixty-three wins of Derek’s career, only fifteen times has he won by more than one score.  And of those, only four times has he won by more than two.  Derek wasn’t specifically told before the Steelers game last week that he was playing for his job, but it was certainly implicit.  And Derek seemed to sense it – he listened to “Happy Endings are Stories That Haven’t Ended Yet” by Mayday Parade on a loop for twelve straight hours before the game. And then he went onto the frozen field at Acrisure Stadium and had one of the worst games of his entire career.

We love Derek.  We hope he’s safe right now.  But only time will tell what the future will hold.  And in the meantime, here’s a song we’d like to dedicate to him from one of his favorite bands.  We’ll never forget about you, Derek. And we’ll never stop rooting for you.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRs7hFcEtRA