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Player who must step up: QB Derek Carr

Yeah, Carr entered the weekend leading the NFL in passing yards, and he is still on pace to throw for a career-best 5,189 yards. And he has had to deal with an unreal amount of off-the-field drama this season, let alone a rebuilt-on-the-fly offensive line. But with Carr, who has a career winning percentage of just .434, only having one year left on his contract, a decision on either extending the most polarizing player in Raiders franchise history or letting him play a lame-duck season while dangling a franchise tag for 2023 could be decided in these final five games. -- Paul Gutierrez

A narrow loss to a surging Washington team is no cause to ring the shame bell, but if the Raiders want to show they are different than the teams that have failed in recent years they have to step up when it matters most. Derek Carr has to hit Foster Moreau and Zay Jones in the red zone. Trevon Moehrig needs to hold on to an errant Taylor Heinicke pass on Washington's final drive. We've reached the crucible of the regular season, and the teams who will advance to the playoffs are the teams who seize opportunities and take advantage of their opponent's mistakes. The Raiders lacked that killer instinct on Sunday in a loss that summoned the ghosts of December's past.

Losing at home to Washington isn't a good look after winning at Dallas. The offense sputtered for much of the day.

The passing game is now almost solely reliant on WR Hunter Renfrow, who has 17 catches for 236 yards over the last two games.

Best-case scenario: Derek Carr has moved from a dark-horse MVP candidate to a longshot after the Raiders' Week 13 loss (Carr is now at plus-10,000, per BetMGM). A Herculean final month, though, could return the QB to the conversation and keep the Raiders in wild-card contention. Carr is on pace to set career highs for yards, attempts, completions and average yards per attempt, but he remains an average quarterback by other metrics, like touchdowns (13th, with 17) and EPA per dropback (15th, per TruMedia). He's been good, certainly, but the best-case scenario for the Raiders is for Carr to be great.