ALAMEDA, CA – The Denver Broncos had just lost to the Kansas City Chiefs, 7-3, and the Oakland Raiders had finally grabbed some momentum with the San Diego Chargers – down 31-26 with the Chargers taking possession from their own one. Actually, it was the half-yard marker, if there were a half-yard marker on a football field.
With 9:35 remaining, and down by just five points, Raider Nation had plenty to cheer and hope for at the time. Unfortunately, the Raiders defense again dashed all hopes by allowing Phillip Rivers to lead the Chargers on a four-play, 99-yard touchdown drive in just under three minutes to put the finishing touches on their 38-26 spoiler victory over the Raiders on Sunday at the Coliseum.
The loss not only prevented the Raiders from winning the AFC West for the first time since 2002, but it also relegated them to third place in the division due to coming out on the wrong end of the tiebreakers within the division.
“To say I’m pissed off is an understatement,” said Raiders’ head coach Hue Jackson after the game. “Obviously we got beat here at home and it didn’t look like a football team that was hungry enough to go win the AFC West title.”
In terms of the defense, Jackson’s point rang true on Sunday. Rivers threw for 310 yards on 19-26 passing and three touchdowns with a quarterback rating of 135.1. To go along with the passing prowess of Rivers, the Raiders also allowed the Chargers to gain 153 yards on 31 carries with one touchdown on the day.
Of the nine possessions San Diego had on the day, the Chargers scored six times – five touchdowns and a field goal. Of the three possessions they didn’t score on, one ended with Rivers taking a knee at the Oakland 23 yard line, one ended due to a missed 44-yard field goal, and one ended due to an interception on their first drive of the game.
“At some point in time as a group of men, you go in the game, and you can say whatever you want about coaches, you win the game,” said Jackson, who admitted that he wasn’t going to take the blame for his team for the first time this season. “Here’s your time. Here’s your time to make plays. We didn’t get ‘em stopped. And we didn’t make enough plays, so yeah, I’m pissed at the team, I’m also, like I tell them, I’ll always put it on me, but I am pissed at my team. Because when you have those kinds of opportunities, you’ve got to do it, and we didn’t do it.”
In Jackson’s post-game press conference, talk turned to defensive coordinator Chuck Bresnahan, but the Raiders’ head coach wouldn’t comment on his coordinator’s future with the team, other than saying, “I think Chuck knows how I feel. I’m disappointed over there. I have been. It’s not like we haven’t had conversations. Chuck knows what I feel and it’s not good enough.”
“We couldn't get off the field,” said defensive tackle Tommy Kelly. “Didn’t execute. Didn’t get job done. Simple as that.” The first time the two teams met this season, Oakland was able to sack Rivers six times, but in a game with playoff implications, the Raiders defense never got close.
I wish I knew. I wish I could tell you the answer to that,” said Jackson of the lack of rush on defense. “We didn’t touch him very much. We didn’t sack him. We didn’t get our hands on him. We didn’t harass him. We didn’t do a lot of the things we did the first time.”
The Raiders began the game on defense, and quickly went to work on breaking the record for penalty yards in a season. Kamerion Wimbley jumped offsides, and was flagged for a neutral zone infraction, putting the Silver and Black just five yards away from history. Two plays later, Matt Giordano crushed Chargers’ receiver Vincent Jackson, and was flagged for unnecessary roughness.
The 15-yard penalty gave the Raiders 1,314 yards penalized on the season – besting the Kansas City Chiefs’ 1998 record of 1,304 yards.
The Raiders set the record for most penalties in a season on the opening kickoff of the second half. Special teams’ ace, Rock Cartwright was called for holding on the play, giving the Raiders 159 penalties on the year. The Raiders finished the season with 163 penalties for 1,358 yards – both single-season records.
It wasn’t all negative for the Raiders’ defense on Chargers’ first drive of the game. Giordano quickly atoned for his infraction by making a play on a bomb to Jackson. Rivers threw deep over the middle, but the Raiders’ safety tracked the long bomb and picked it off at the Oakland five yard line to end San Diego’s opening threat.
The interception built momentum for the Raiders’ first score of the game – and their only lead.
Michael Bush ran for 31 yards on six carries, Louis Murphy scorched the Chargers defense for a 27-yard end around run, and the San Diego defense pitched in with 23 yards of unsportsmanlike penalties to put Oakland on the San Diego three yard line. One of the unsportsmanlike penalties was on Chargers’ defensive end Antwan Barnes, who was ejected after the Murphy run.
The Raiders’ 12-play, 95-yard scoring drive culminated on a three-yard-touchdown throw from Carson Palmer to Darrius Heyward-Bey in the left corner of the end zone with 7:20 left in the first quarter.
Palmer, who has had trouble with turnovers since becoming the Raiders’ starting quarterback during their week eight bye, recorded the third greatest passing day, in terms of yards, by a Raiders quarterback in the history of the franchise. Palmer’s 417 yards passing ranks behind Jeff Hostetler’s 424 yard performance on Halloween of 1993 in a 30-23 loss against the Chargers and Cotton Davidson’s 419 yards during a 40-7 victory over the Denver Broncos at Frank Yuell field on October 25, 1964.
The Raiders’ signal caller completed 28 passes on 43 attempts (65.1%) and threw a late pick that was attributed to a slip by receiver Jacoby Ford. Despite the interception, his two touchdowns helped give Palmer a 102.6 quarterback rating on the day.
“[Ford] was trying to come out of a break and he fell down,” said Jackson of the interception of Palmer. “I mean, the guy was wide open. He fell. That’s the luck that we had today.”
In the second quarter, the Raiders matched a Chargers touchdown with a field goal to maintain some momentum in the game. The field goal left the Silver and Black behind 14-10, but the ensuing kickoff may have been the game changer the Chargers would need to keep the Raiders from ever gaining the momentum they would need to win.
Chargers, wide receiver Richard Goodman would receive the kick five yards in his own end zone, weave through traffic and find a seam towards the right sideline before getting to the end zone untouched for a back-breaking score. Jackson admitted that the return was the turning point of the game.
“When they got the ball and they scored on the kickoff return, to me that was a huge difference in the game, huge,” said Jackson. The score put the Chargers up 21-10, and the half would end with the Raiders trailing 24-13.
It could have been 24-16, but due to clock mismanagement the Raiders ran out of time at the San Diego 32 yard line. Jackson blamed communication for the miscue, saying, “That’s on me, I take full responsibility for that. It’s not on [Palmer].”
The Raiders will now begin to reshape the front office, with a new general manager, and it’s believed that the coaching staff will be reformed even quicker.
Jackson was able to say one thing that needed to change on the team: Attitude.
“I know one thing: This team needs an attitude adjustment,” said Jackson. “What I mean by that, the killer instinct has got to exist here. It’s something I’ve talked about. When you don’t finish games at the end …. Guys, this has been going on all year but when you don’t finish games at the end … we’re pointing to this one but this feeling that I’ve had has been there all year. You try to change it, change it, change it, you do a lot of different things, and I haven’t been able to get it changed. I know what needs to happen and we’ll move forward.”
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