nly for his deep roots at Sea Island but as the tournament

This story appears in ESPN The Magazines December 12 issue. Subscribe today!Go back to Week 1. Raiders vs. Saints. Its the beginning of the fourth quarter, and Oakland is losing 24-13. Third-year quarterback Derek Carr takes a snap, drops back a few steps and then surveys the field--calmly, like a father waiting for his children to appear on the steps of their school. After a moment passes, he slings a beautifully arched pass to wide receiver Amari Cooper, who has somehow crept behind the Saints secondary. Its a 43-yard gain and another highlight-reel throw for Carr.Now go back and watch again. Instead of waiting for Carr to release the ball, pay attention to everything that happens beforehand. Watch the Raiders tackles shoot their arms out and manhandle their defenders, while the guards refuse to cede an inch. Watch the chasm that opens up between the offensive line and the quarterback, an expanse of green that never seems to close. Watch the clock as the seconds tick by.Thats what Derek Carr remembers from that day. The time and the space and, more than anything, the smacking of pads and the crunching of bones and the terrible cries of mountain-sized men being knocked around by his blockers. He remembers dropping behind his offensive line as thunderous collisions unfolded in front of him, bearing witness to a level of violence that still leaves him awestruck.You can see it on film and you can see it on TV and you can see it in person, he says. But when youre behind it?Behind 10-foot eyelashes, his blue eyes widen.You can hear it.There comes a point in every story about Derek Carr when his older brothers name is invoked, typically as source material for the young quarterbacks innate gifts -- and, until recently, his perceived flaws. David Carr, the Houston Texans No. 1 overall pick in the 2002 draft, famously went bust. When Derek entered the draft in 2014, he had put up Heisman-worthy numbers at Fresno State, but Davids story lingered in scouting reports like a bad Yelp review, and several QB-starved teams (including Houston) passed on the younger brother, sending him tumbling into the second round.Their loss. After two and a half seasons with the Raiders, Derek has bloomed into a viable MVP candidate, steering his team to seven wins on the back of an exhilarating aerial attack. Heading into Monday nights tilt with the Texans in Mexico City, he has thrown 17 TDs and just three interceptions, a ratio that puts him in elite company and could set him up for a mammoth new deal. When the ball is in his hands late in the game, everybody believes something big is gonna happen, says Matt Hasselbeck, a former NFL quarterback who now works as an ESPN analyst. I saw that with Brett Favre when I was his teammate.And so it is that Dereks story has finally subsumed his origin myth -- and that his brothers failure, once an indelible part of that record, has faded away like a discredited theory. But to ignore it would also be a mistake. Because while Carr has risen on the strength of his unique talents, he has soared because of the giants who stand in front of him -- those violent actors who buy him room to breathe, a luxury David never experienced as a young quarterback. Ive been able to see complete, total opposite sides of it, Carr says. I saw my brother in Houston have nothing. And I have our offensive line, which I think is the best in the NFL.The contrast is astonishing. David, who played behind a rotating cast of human turnstiles on the then newly formed Texans, was sacked a record 76 times during his rookie year, which is more than Derek has been taken down since entering the NFL. This year the Raiders offensive line has allowed just 11 sacks and 21 quarterback hits, ranking first in the league through Week 10. Theyve held up against stiff competition. The Broncos dominant front seven, which entered their Nov. 6 game against the Raiders with the best pressure percentage of any team since 2008, according to ESPN Stats & Information, hassled Carr on a mere 21 percent of his dropbacks, Denvers worst performance to that point of the season.To hear Carr tell it, battling Von Miller & Co. was like flying over traffic in a private jet. We just played the best pass rushers in the NFL and it was the most comfortable Ive felt, he says. The Raiders began building the current iteration of the line in 2014, the year rookie Carr became the teams starter. Right tackle Menelik Watson was already on the roster; GM Reggie McKenzie added left tackle Donald Penn in free agency, then selected Gabe Jackson, the teams right guard, in the draft. The Raiders signed veteran center Rodney Hudson in 2015, then splurged a year later on Kelechi Osemele, arguably the leagues most formidable guard. To ensure that Osemele could continue playing inside, McKenzie re-signed Penn, and the line that fans call Carr Insurance was born.This influx of talent has come at a price. Thanks in part to their quarterbacks cheap contract, the Raiders currently devote $37.7 million in cap dollars to the offensive line, $3 million more than what any other team pays. When asked if hes aware of how expensive his line is, Carr nods. As it should be, he says. Mr. McKenzie told me from the beginning, when I was named the starter, he said, Were gonna build this thing around you. They see that Im valuable to them. They want to protect me.Donald Penn remembers the first time he saw Derek Carr at training camp. As he and the other starters looked on, the rookie quarterback fired bombs to the Raiders backups, showing off his crisp, flawless throwing motion. I was like, This kids got something about him, Penn says. He carried himself with a swagger.Penn -- older, tattooed, a little brash -- would seem to have little in common with Carr, who is almost comically wholesome, the sort of athlete destined to star in ads for milk and comfortable jeans. Ive never heard him say a cuss word! Penn says. But Carr, who grew up hanging around David in locker rooms for more than a decade (when he was 6, he says, he used to eat lunch with his brother in the high school cafeteria), has always slid into new groups with ease. When he became the Raiders starter, he began attending the offensive line meetings and tagging along for their steakhouse dinners, gawking as his massive teammates overloaded the table with food. He can recite information about their hobbies and their families, and hes shared his strong Christian faith with them. He often tells them he loves them.While Carr has bonded with the entire group, hes grown closest with Hudson, the center who sets protections during games. Carr says he always pulls up a chair next to Hudson during team meetings and that the two of them will often stay up late on Saturday nights, bouncing ideas off each other in the team hotel. We just go to another level in our discussions -- stuff we dont want everyone to hear because their brains might explode, he says with a laugh.Hudson, a soft-spoken Alabama native, says hell be out at dinner, look at his phone and see that DC has been texting him videos of plays. Were in constant communication, he says.The Raiders offensive line is unique in several ways, aside from being the most expensive. Its starting unit is composed entirely of black players; Penn says theyve hung posters of the NCAA-championship-winning 1966 Texas Western basketball team and the Tuskegee Airmen, other groups that shared similar distinctions, in their practice room. Its also the heaviest line in football, with the average lineman weighing in at 324.2 pounds. That runs counter to the trend of teams employing lighter, more athletic linemen who can move side to side while blocking.Raiders O-line coach Mike Tice says he wants blockers who are brainy and athletic, but he doesnt deny that hes assembled a group of road-grading sledgehammers. The lines muscle was on full display in the Denver game, when the Raiders averaged 5.1 yards per rush. At one point, the team ran the same play 10 times in a row, simply overpowering the Broncos defensive line with brute force.In addition to tallying knockdowns (Jackson, the right guard, is known for racking up pancake blocks), Tice also tracks takedowns, which occur when a lineman uses his hands to bring down a rusher. People say you cant be physical pass-protecting -- they think you can only be physical in the run game. I disagree, he says. Even if were passing, I still want to knock guys down and keep the quarterback clean. Carr is known for his lightning-quick release, but Tice wants his line to buy him enough time so that he can set his feet before taking deep shots, especially against defenses that play tight coverage. We pride ourselves on that, he says.When a quarterback can step into his throws and hes got an arm like Derek? He chuckles. People are in trouble.When Carr tells stories about his linemen mauling defensive players, he omits the opponents names to be respectful. The 25-year-old is incredibly polite and relentlessly positive. It sometimes seems he was manufactured in a lab for franchise quarterbacks, designed to appeal to GMs and grandmothers alike. So its a little jarring when he gets fired up in response to a question about his brothers career in Houston. I feel so bad for him because their team sucked, he says. (If that seems milquetoast, consider that sucked might be the closest thing to profanity in Carrs vocabulary.) Thats a team you dream of playing. The Raiders, if we wouldve played that team -- it wouldve been ridiculous. We wouldve looked forward to that.In high school, Carr was asked to write a paper making an argument on any topic. He elected to write about why the Texans shouldnt trade his brother. What quarterback wouldnt have struggled, young Derek wrote, with such a feeble supporting cast? He says David wouldve absolutely thrived behind the Raiders line. If I was on that Houston Texans team, I dont know if my body wouldve held up, he says. These days, when Carr sees quarterbacks like Russell Wilson and Sam Bradford scrambling behind slipshod protection, he cringes. Honestly, I feel for them, he says. Im so thankful for what I have -- what we have.Its impossible to overstate the impact that offensive line play has on the development of a young quarterback. Just look at Dallas, where rookie Dak Prescott is thriving. While Prescott is undeniably talented, he has also been blessed with the opportunity to throw passes behind a battalion of human tanks. Meanwhile, fellow rookie Carson Wentz struggled in Philadelphia after Lane Johnson, the Eagles stud right tackle, was suspended and replaced with an inexperienced blocker.David Carr, who now works for the NFL Network, says that, after being repeatedly sacked and hit, he grew wary of his protection and gradually developed a skittishness that took permanent hold in his psyche. He compares being an NFL rookie to childhood -- a little boy or girl who grows up without encountering danger is more likely to become fearless. Its like that with quarterbacks, he says. If youre never in a situation where its a complete disaster, you can develop at a normal rate.He sees that growth in Derek. In college, the younger Carr completed 72 percent of his passes in a clean pocket but just 29 percent when under duress, according to ESPN Stats & Information. During his first two years in the NFL, he posted QBR ratings of 9.7 when pressured and 7.8 under duress. This year his QBR when pressured has risen to 41.4, which was eighth best in the NFL heading into Week 11.Because Carr mostly avoids contact, hes learned not to fear it, even during the rare plays when his linemen get pushed around. Theyve brainwashed me, he says with a laugh. As hes grown more composed and intrepid, hes become comfortable making adjustments on the fly. Take, for example, that throw to Cooper, the 43-yard completion in the Saints game in Week 1. Amari wasnt even supposed to get the ball, he says. But because they protected me for so long, I saw that no one was going anywhere. So I looked off the safety for, like, three seconds, and he had to take the bait. That ball never shouldve been completed against that coverage.Going forward, Carr says, he plans to continue taking more risks on the field, trying his hand at creative looks and passes. Its helped me take my game to another level, he says. In Oakland, he has the freedom to experiment -- and the time, and the space. Patriots Jerseys 2020 . Varlamov made 33 saves and Ryan OReilly had a goal and scored in the shootout as the Avalanche beat the New Jersey Devils 2-1 on Thursday night. Wholesale Patriots Jerseys . Team physician Dr. Steve Traina performed the surgery Friday. Robinson was injured in a spill underneath the Nuggets basket during the first quarter of Wednesday nights loss to the Charlotte Bobcats. https://www.patriotsjerseysale.com/ .com) - The Pittsburgh Penguins placed forward James Neal on injured reserve Tuesday. Patriots Jerseys China . 4 Villanova with a 96-68 drubbing on Monday. Wragge hit 9-of-14 from behind the arc, matching Kyle Korvers school record for 3-pointers in a game set in 2003, as Creighton (16-3, 6-1 Big East broke a conference record with 21 treys in the rout. New England Patriots Gear . -- The Portland Timbers and Real Salt Lake played to a 0-0 tie Saturday night that left the top of the Western Conference standings unchanged. ST. SIMONS ISLAND, Ga. -- Ryder Cup captain Davis Love III was so fired up watching the Americans play and win at Hazeltine that he couldnt wait to get out of his cart and get back to playing. He said one of his assistant captains, Tiger Woods, felt the same way.Both had to wait a while.Love and Woods were scheduled to play the PGA Tours season-opening event at the Safeway Open, and both withdrew. One got more attention than the other.Woods still hasnt played since August 2015. He is due to return in two weeks at his Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas. Love waited only a few weeks before he returned at Las Vegas and tied for 41st, not a bad effort for a 52-year-old who had hip surgery in June.And then he pulled out of Mexico to make sure he was rested for the RSM Classic at Sea Island, where he is tournament host of the final event of the year.Tiger and I had the same thing happen to us, Love said. We had some momentum, and then we got so wrapped up a couple weeks in the Ryder Cup, and then we got hit by a hurricane that we didnt really get the practice schedule we were quite planning the week after the Ryder Cup.Im getting better every week, so hopefully by January, Ill be 100 percent.As for Woods?Thats still to be determined.2016 FINALE: The RSM Classic sure feels like the end. There wont be another PGA Tour event until the Tournament of Champions at Kapalua the first week of January, giving players six weeks off if they want it.On the other hand, this is only the sixth week of the new season. A tour official mentioned to defending champion Kevin Kisner that at this time a year ago, he was leading the FedEx Cup after the fall portion of the season and asked what was different.Im not leading, Kisner said. Ive only played twice. Didnt play well either place, really.THE BUSY BODIES: Peter Malnati and Spencer Levin have earned a dubious distinction in the fall portionn of the tour schedule.ddddddddddddeither of them has missed a tournament.Scott Piercy was part of that group, too, but he decided to take this week off. The difference is that Piercy has converted the full schedule into a great start to his season. He already has three top 10s and is No. 7 in the FedEx Cup.Malnati and Levin have missed two cuts and have yet to crack the top 30.THE FIELD: Matt Kuchar is the highest-ranked player at Sea Island at No. 20 in the world, and it helps that he leaves here. The only PGA Tour winner in this new season at the RSM Classic is Cody Gribble, who won in Mississippi opposite the World Golf Championship in China.Love is a big attraction, not only for his deep roots at Sea Island but as the tournament host who recently was selected for the Hall of Fame. Two other Hall-of-Famers are in the field, Vijay Singh and Ernie Els.LAST CHANCE: Although the season is still young, this is the last chance for players to qualify for the winners-only Tournament of Champions that starts the new year at Kapalua on Maui.No one feels like hes due more than Kevin Chappell. But if he wins, he wont be going to paradise.Can I ask for a rain check? Chappell said.His wife, Elizabeth, is expecting their second child in January. Chappell plans to stay home for the month of January. Even so, he would love to get that first PGA Tour victory after a season in which he finished runner-up three times -- twice to Jason Day, once to Rory McIlroy.THE COURSES: Love received the tours permission last year to use two courses at Sea Island Golf Club -- Seaside all four rounds, and Plantation the opening two rounds. That allows for a 156-man field, the largest of the fall. Two courses are required because it gets dark early this time of the year. ' ' '