Down six. In fourth and one at the opposing team’s 43 with just over seven minutes left. That seems like the perfect time to go for it, doesn’t it? It sure seemed that way to most who were watching when the Raiders were in that position. And yet, head coach Antonio Pierce decided to go with the non-aggressive move and punt it away.
What happened next was the Chargers essentially put the game away. They drove right down the field for a touchdown to seal the 22-10 win.
Pierce defended his decision after the game.
“We considered going for it,” said Pierce. “It was a long one, it got stopped earlier in the game. Momentum. Punter had done a good job pinning those guys back. I think we had two or three punts inside the 20. Defense was a strength for the most part of the game. Keep them backed up with three timeouts.”
There are some problems with these reasons.
Yeah, they were stopped earlier in the game on 4th and one. It was early in the gme in their own territory on a play where it would’ve actually made sense to punt it. So, that makes for the wrong decision twice. But, again, that was the second drive of the game. When the Chargers defense was fresh, having played a total of six snaps up to that point. No reason to make decisions in the fourth quarter based on plays in the first quarter. Not the least of which being that it signals a lack of faith in your offense.
That drive only served to put an underline and an exclamation point on the poor decision by Pierce to give the ball back to the Chargers without even attempting to keep driving down the field.
But even before the result, the decision was the wrong one. The Raiders had added a field goal on the previous drive to make it a one-score game, the defense held strong — which they hadn’t done much of in the second half up to that point — and Tre Tucker had a nice punt return to gain the field position advantage.
So, yeah, there was momentum. And punting it gave that momentum away. And for what? 35 yards on a punt? Pinning them back? Even if they stayed pinned back, they’d still have more field to punt it back again after running the clock down more.
And they didn’t stay pinned back. They got out of it in three plays and two plays after that, they were at the Vegas 14. Courtesy of a 61-yard run. While you can’t predict that specifically, the signs were there that the Raiders were losing the battle at the line of scrimmage by the end of the third quarter with consecutive big chunk runs of 10 yards and a 12-yard touchdown.
That’s a sign you need to keep the ball out of the hands of the Chargers at all costs and keep your defense on the sideline as long as possible.
That play call to punt on that fourth down was punting on this game.