Two weeks ago, the Raiders were squarely in the playoff picture at 6-3. They were coming off three-straight wins, including two against division foes and one over a tough Browns team.
A week ago, they went toe-to-toe right down to the wire with the one-loss Chiefs. And that one loss was from the time the Chiefs faced the Raiders before. So, you can understand the Raiders felt pretty confident this week facing a 3-7 Falcons team.
The talk all week was about how this team was a confident 6-4. Far more confident than they had been at 6-4 last season. That had a lot to do with being 6-4 this season with the third toughest first ten games while facing the third easiest schedule the rest of the way.
After all that different feeling they had, this loss had that old familiar feeling of ‘here we go again.’
Right from the start, nothing could go right for the Raiders. And it didn’t get better. Nay, it got worse. Much, much worse.
On the first drive, they turned the ball over on downs after going for it on 4th and one at their own 45. That led to a Falcons field goal. The next possession lasted one play and it was a fumble. That led to another Falcons field goal. Then it was a punt, field goal, punt, fumble the rest of the first half. That fumble led to another Falcons field goal which gave them a 16-3 lead at the half.
As bad as that was, hold onto your britches because this train went off the rails in the second half.
A three-and-out to start the third quarter wasn’t a good sign. But the defense held the Falcons to a punt as well and Derek Carrier tipped it to give the Raiders great field position at the Atlanta 36. On the second play, Carr was intercepted and it was returned for a touchdown.
The 23-3 lead became 30-6 after a long Falcons drive which was helped by a couple of Raiders defensive penalties. And a Josh Jacobs fumble would gift the Falcons with another field goal to start the 4th quarter. Just for good measure, Derek Carr was strip-sacked for the third time in the game, leading to another Falcons touchdown. Before it was all said and done, the Falcons had ripped the Raiders 43-6.
How did it come to this? Derek Carr points to the week of practice.
“I still stand by what I said, it still feels different on this team,” said Carr after the game. “But our week of practice was not up to the standard that we have set. I haven’t felt this way [this season] where we got punched in the face. It just kept happening.”
But why wasn’t the energy there? Could it be the Raiders were just beaten down from giving it their all against the Chiefs only to fall short? A hangover, if you will.
“You try and get guys going in practice and try and get yourself going and it just didn’t feel right,” Carr continued. “I don’t know what the reason for that was, I don’t know why that happened. I think we’ve done a great job of flushing things win or loss and going to the next game. Coach does a great job of that. He makes sure we know every good thing about the next team that we’re going to play to make sure we’re ready to go. I don’t know if it was a hangover type effect. Maybe I don’t know. I’d have to study that. For me, I just know it wasn’t up to our standard so this week it better be.”
So, perhaps the Raiders were down on themselves. Or perhaps they were feeling like, despite the loss, that they have proven they’re among the league’s elite, so they can cruise control this one. Jon Gruden said that wasn’t it.
“No, no, no. It’s going to be written and talked about I’m sure on some of the talk shows, and rightfully so,” Gruden said of the team buying too much into them being better than last year at this time. “We didn’t play well today. The Falcons are fighting for their lives. We said that coming in here. This is one of the best 3-7 teams I have seen. They did this to Minnesota who was a playoff team last year, and I challenge anybody that’s getting ready for Atlanta, this team is very good football team and well-coached.”
Gruden did say that about the Falcons this week. And it turned out to be somewhat of a self-fulfilling prophecy. He also talked up Raheem Morris who was a former assistant of his from his Tampa days.
Morris led the previously 0-5 Falcons to a 3-2 mark over his first five games since taking over as the interim head coach for the fired Dan Quinn. Gruden has several times credited the Falcons as a sneaky good team in general, but shot down the idea that perhaps Morris’s familiarity with him had anything to do with the Raiders’ offense’s struggles Sunday.
“We had some players open. We had opportunities to make plays,” Gruden said when I asked him about potential match-up problems facing Morris. “I’m not going to sit here and say anything else. We had plenty of opportunities, they made more plays than we did, and it snowballed on us today. And when you turn the ball over five times and have a 120 yards of penalties, you got no chance.”
Ok, so if it a specific match-up problem, if it is self-inflicted wounds, how does that happen all of the sudden? How does this team go from being as efficient as they had been, to shooting themselves in the foot over and over and their offense somehow looking nothing like it had just a week ago against the high-powered Chiefs.
Either the Raiders know and aren’t saying, they don’t know and are guessing, or it’s all of the above. If they don’t know, they better figure it out or this game will be the start of an ugly trend.
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