For weeks and weeks, there have been excuses — reasons to explain away a loss here or coming up just short there. But this week? I’ve got nothing.
The Oakland Raiders played a bad football team, at home — not to mention for the final time in the city of Oakland. They started off well, the defense played well, the offense didn’t turn the ball over, and yet? They lost 20-16 to the Jacksonville Jaguars — their fourth straight loss and one that essentially eliminates them from playoff contention.
But here’s the thing that has kept my head spinning since Sunday: it just doesn’t make sense. Referees aside (we’ll get to them), just look at what the box score reveals about the game:
- The Raiders out-gained the Jaguars 364-262 and ran 19 more plays (72-53)
- The Raiders possessed the ball for 34:12 (compared to 25:48)
- The Raiders had less penalties for less yards than Jacksonville
- The Raiders didn’t turn the ball over
- The Raiders had two more sacks (4) than Jacksonville
- The Raiders had ten more first downs than Jacksonville
But wait, there’s more! Here is the most mind-boggling piece of the puzzle for me: the Raiders had 10 drives on Sunday, and nine of them involved plays ran in Jacksonville territory. The one that didn’t? It only got to the Oakland 46.
Just think about that. 10 times the Raiders got past their own 45 and yet they only scored four times — three of which were field goals. The Raiders went into the red zone three times and got nine points out of those drives. Daniel Carlson missed a 50-yard field goal and then a 45-yard field goal (after a penalty gave him a second try).
Seriously, it’s mind-blowing. I’m not sure I’ll ever see a football game like this one again (at least I hope not).
Despite all of that, the Raiders were still in a position to win this game when the offense had the ball with just over two minutes remaining, facing a second-and-nine. The play call involved Derek Carr rolling to his right — a perfect play call that resulted in a gain of 12 yards and a first down with 2:05 left on the clock. The best part? Carr gave himself up in bounds in order to keep the clock moving.
Except….the refs missed it. Instead of taking the clock to 2:00, they called him out of bounds — stopping the clock and forcing the Raiders to run a play that would take just a few seconds off the clock. As a result, after Josh Jacobs ran for four total yards on the next two plays, Jacksonville burned their final time out, forcing the Raiders to face a third-and-11 with 1:52 left on the Jacksonville 32.
Rather than run the ball, the Raiders chose to throw it — a pass that bounced off the hands of Tyrell Williams, stopping the clock once again. Then Carlson missed the field goal (twice) and the Jaguars got the ball back with 1:44 left.
Let’s assume that the refs hadn’t blown the call on Carr’s scramble. How would things have been different?
Their first down play would have forced Jacksonville to burn their final timeout at about the 1:55 mark. Assuming the Raiders run two more times, that would bring the clock to the 26-second mark by the time Daniel Carlson would have been attempting a field goal. Even if he missed (and I wonder if the Raiders would have chosen to punt anyways), Jacksonville would have had just 22 seconds and no timeouts to go down and score.
Instead, they were able to use 1:13 of game clock to score the game winning touchdown. (And yes, the Raider defense was pathetic in the fourth quarter, so it’s not like the blame needs to be strictly on the refs here).
All in all, it was a wild game and a shocking loss — all for a team that started the season with such remarkable momentum. Now? They look like the team many expected to see: still a long ways from being truly competitive and still a laughingstock.
Is that who they really are? Who knows — I’m still trying to figure out what happened on Sunday.
