ALAMEDA, Calif. -- In his first interview with a Bay Area media outlet since suffering a broken fibula in his right leg on Christmas Eve, Oakland Raiders quarterback Derek Carr spoke of the fateful moment he was injured, how tough it was for him to watch his team last weekend, and acknowledged that his pinkie injury was worse than announced.
Carr, a leading NFL MVP candidate, spoke to Raiders radio voice Greg Papa Tuesday on his afternoon radio show on 95.7 The Game. He was asked if, after watching replays of his injury -- when Trent Cole rolled over him as Carr tried to escape his grasp around his lower body -- he would do anything differently on the play.
"It's so hard for me to answer that," Carr said. "In hindsight, yes ... nothing bad happened until I tried to fight for more. That's who I am. It's in me.
"It's the most violent sport there is ... I don't want to say I'd do something different, but obviously I wish I did. Being in a boot is not fun. Being on crutches is not fun ... [but] I'm never going to stop fighting. That's what got me in this spot in my career."
Carr also spoke of how "eerie" it was when he realized immediately the leg was broken.
"It was a scary feeling," he said. "I've rolled and torn ligaments in my ankle. To have something break. It was an eerie feeling. I couldn't hear a thing. I knew it was broke how it was sitting. I heard it. I heard it go. It was an eerie, scary thing.
"I knew there was going to be a hill to climb and I'm always up for a challenge."
With Carr out, the Raiders turned to Matt McGloin against the Denver Broncos on Sunday with the AFC West title on the line. The Broncos beat the Raiders 24-6 and knocked McGloin out of the game late in the first half. Oakland had to play rookie Connor Cook, who had never dressed for a game before Sunday, let alone taken a snap.
How tough was it for Carr to watch from home?
"It ripped my heart out," he said. "I sat on the couch with my foot propped up."
Carr said he had the game plan in front of him as he watched.
Carr said Cook played "with great poise" in Denver, especially since, as the third-year quarterback put it, Carr would take "99.9 percent" of the practice snaps during the week.
"The game is going to be 10 times faster than it will be for him two years from now," Carr said.
As for the advice he would offer Cook, should he get the start for Saturday's playoff game at Houston?
"We've got to run the ball efficiently and we've got to be accurate on the perimeter," Carr said. "If it is Connor ... it will be great experience for him."
Oh, and that right pinkie finger that was dislocated in two places on that errant snap from center Rodney Hudson on Nov. 27?
"There was a little fracture in it, there was," a sheepish Carr said. "There was a lot of things going on in there. But I can bend it now."