Raiders tight end Mychal Rivera shows his skills at improvisation

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The Raiders have a playbook and a game plan, but good teams and good players sometimes must go off-script. On Sunday, the Raiders were a good team and tight end Mychal Rivera was a good player.

Rivera, in his second NFL season, has been famous mainly for being the brother of Naya Rivera, who plays Santana Lopez on “Glee.”

On Sunday, Mychal got some recognition of his own, catching seven passes for 109 yards and a touchdown. It was the first 100-yard receiving game for a Raiders tight end since Brandon Myers (130 yards) in December 2012.

On at least two occasions, Rivera departed from the playbook, scrambling in harmony with quarterback Derek Carr to make chunk plays.

“There was one (play) where they covered him and he did a great job for me of stopping,” Carr said, adding, “He understands the coverage; he understood what the guy was doing. So he knew if he stopped, I could pin it on him and make a play. ...

“If I remember correctly, it was like a zone coverage. They brought a lot of pressure and I stepped up in the pocket and I just saw him open. I couldn’t see exactly how it happened, but I just think he did a good job of finding the window.”

That was the first play of the fourth quarter, 3rd-and-8 at the Raiders’ 44. The 27-yard gain kept alive the drive that Carr and Rivera capped seven plays later with a 5-yard touchdown pass, the game’s knockout blow.

Mychal Rivera (81) signals to the stands after a catch during the first half of the Raiders game against the 49ers at O.co Coliseum in Oakland, Calif., on Sunday December 7, 2014. Mychal Rivera (81) signals to the stands after a catch during the first half of the Raiders game against the 49ers at O.co Coliseum in Oakland, Calif., on Sunday December 7, 2014. Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle Photo: Carlos Avila Gonzalez / The Chronicle Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close Raiders tight end Mychal Rivera shows his skills at improvisation 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

Rivera, a sixth-round draft pick from Tennessee, didn’t start a game last season but has started eight of the Raiders’ 13 games this season. Going into Sunday, he had 41 catches for 355 yards this season, an 8.7-yard average. On Sunday, he averaged 15.6 yards.

“Of course, it’s frustrating,” Rivera said. “You want to play that well every game, but what we can do is look forward and try to build on this game and try to recreate what we did today in every single game.”

Interim head coach Tony Sparano said he likes the off-script stuff his players are starting to do.

“These are all good things for the future here,” Sparano said.

Scott Ostler is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist.