The Oakland Raiders came up short against the Jacksonville Jaguars in their final home game of the 2019 NFL season in part thanks to a blown call by the officials.
Quarterback Derek Carr managed to secure a solid 12-yard gain before making a slide to keep the clock running into the two-minute warning with the Raiders leading 16-13 late. Instead, the clock was stopped and the Jaguars were essentially granted an extra time out to secure their comeback.
The NFL has since issued an apology to Oakland for the botched call. Regardless, it still does not do much for head coach Jon Gruden.
Gruden made it clear that he is still frustrated with all the missed calls that occurred this season, via the team’s official website:
“I don’t like it at all,” he said when asked about the play. “They stopped the game in Indiana, took my middle linebacker away for 12 weeks; they ended his season. They stopped the game in Kansas City and took [Trayvon] Mullen’s interception away. Why don’t you stop the game and get the clock right? I don’t think it was even close. So, I’m not happy about it. Apologies are great, but this is 2020, we’ve been in enough meetings and I’m disgusted by it.”
Gruden added that the apology does little to make up for potentially costing his team a win in their final home game in Oakland:
“What happened yesterday, the quarterback gave himself up in the field of play,” Gruden reiterated. “You had eight [referees] out there, you know? So, I’m not going to say much more, but to answer your question it’s not real fulfilling, or is it fulfilling for our team and our fans who came out there to support us.”
Gruden’s frustrations are certainly understandable considering the number of instances that the Raiders were shortchanged in the 2019 campaign. Of course, it is safe to say that this blown call undoubtedly stung the most given what this game meant for the fans.
It is difficult to gauge whether or not the outcome would have been different had the officials let the clock run until the two-minute warning, but if the Raiders ran three run plays after, the clock would have run all the way down to around the 30-second mark. All the team is left with now is a bitter ending in Oakland and a meaningless apology from the league acknowledging one of the many notable mistakes referees have made this year.
Even if winning the final two games is not much of a consolation, this will be an ideal time for Gruden to examine the roster before the Raiders relocate to Las Vegas.
