Tag: Jack Jones

Ballers & Busters for Raiders Week 17 loss to Colts

Raiders went out swinging, but went out just the same.

After a big win at Arrowhead over the defending champion Chiefs in Week 16, a trip to Indianapolis to face Gardner Minshew and the Colts seemed like a very winnable game for the Raiders.

It isn’t really that simple, though. The Raiders beat the Chiefs thanks to a couple of defensive TD’s. They can’t rely on that every week.

By half time, the Colts had scored off two big catches and the Raiders offense managed just a field goal. The Colts didn’t need to score a touchdown in the second half and still pulled out the win.[anyclip-media thumbnail=”undefined” playlistId=”undefined” content=”dW5kZWZpbmVk”][/anyclip-media]

Officials appear to have blown crucial offsides penalty on Colts missed field goal vs Raiders

Officials appear to have blown crucial offsides penalty on Colts missed field goal vs Raiders

With 3:11 left in the game in Indianapolis, the Colts lined up for a huge field goal from 50 yards out. Make it and it’s a two-score game. Miss it and the Raiders need just one touchdown to tie.

Colts kicker Matt Gay sent the kick away and it doinked off the right upright. But there was a flag on the field. Raiders cornerback Jack Jones was called for offsides, wiping away the missed field goal and moving the ball five yards closer.

With the second chance from 45 yards out, Gay split the uprights, giving the Colts a 23-13 lead. A back breaker.

The thing is, though, from the looks of it, that wasn’t offsides by Jones. Take a look:

Jones is clearly not lined up offsides. Then the ball is snapped at the exact same time Jones goes. Perfectly timed. Hard to see how that could be legitimately deemed an offsides.

Raiders head coach Antonio Pierce was careful not to say anything to get himself fined after the game when asked about the offsides call.

“I didn’t see it,” said Pierce. “They called it. Obviously something happened for them to call it. It was too close.”

The Raiders offense drove down the field to score a touchdown, but it wasn’t for the tie, it was to pull to within three points. Therefore they needed an onsides kick and the Colts recovered to end it.

Obviously, this isn’t a simple mathematical equation as both teams would have played differently in the ensuing drive knowing the Raiders only needed a touchdown to tie it. But it has to be frustrating to not have that chance due to a bad call by the officials.

The Raiders must make Antonio Pierce their full-time head coach, and here’s why

Antonio Pierce’s ability to bring out the most in his players is one reason he should be the Raiders’ full-time head coach.

The off-season coaching search should be as simple as possible for Las Vegas Raiders owner Mark Davis.

In fact, that coaching search shouldn’t even exist.

Davis made a major miscalculation when he hired Josh McDaniels on January 31, 2022. McDaniels was the man in Davis’ mind to replace interim head coach Rich Bisaccia, who excelled in that role following Jon Gruden’s retirement in disgrace. McDaniels turned out to be his own disaster in his own ways, and his November 1 departure could have had the Raiders completely unmoored.

But with linebackers coach Antonio Pierce promoted to interim head coach, this Raiders team has become an entirely different animal. That’s been especially true on defense. Through Week 9, the Raiders ranked 19th in Defensive DVOA. From Week 10 through last Monday’s 20-14 win over the Kansas City Chiefs, the Raiders rank third in Defensive DVOA, behind only the San Francisco 49ers and the New York Jets.

The AP Effect is real, and it is spectacular.

One of the biggest beneficiaries of the AP Effect is cornerback Jack Jones. The New England Patriots, who selected Jones in the fourth round of the 2022 draft, waived him in mid-November, and the Raiders swept him right up.

There’s some serious history there, as Jones played his high-school football at Long Beach Polytechnic. Who was Jones’ head coach there? Antonio Pierce. How much has that mattered? In four games with New England this season, Jones had allowed eight catches on 11 targets for 115 yards, 21 yards after the catch, 1 touchdown, no interceptions, one pass breakup, and an opponent passer rating of 136.6.

Since the Raiders got him, Jones has allowed 11 catches on 18 targets for 78 yards, 32 yards after the catch, no touchdowns, two interceptions, and an opponent passer rating of 31.5.

Fellow Raiders cornerback Nate Hobbs has said that Jones is a fanatic about studying tape, and that’s transferred to the rest of the group. Pierce acknowledged that, and brought it all back to their high school days.

“Yeah, when Jack was younger we had a lot of study hall at Long Beach Poly. Those office hours led into watching film the way Jack was as a player and person. So, he’s learned at a young age that film is important. He’s carried that into his now professional career. It’s good to see. You really want that with a lot of players. All of us should be a student of the game. This is our job, right? It’s your job to know it. It’s your job, it’s nobody else. I can tell you all the information, but it’s your job as a professional to go there and do what you need to do to get yourself ready and prepared to play, and he’s done that obviously in the last two or three weeks by his performance. That’s got to continue, but you’d like to see everybody doing it.

“If Nate [Hobbs] is talking with Jack, then I’ll say, ‘Jack, why are you not bringing Nate? Why are you not bringing Amik [Robertson]? Where’s the rest of the DBs, all the corners should be there.’ We should all be seeing the same thing, right? You know what this building is? It’s silver and black. We should all see the same colors. Don’t make up any other new colors and new schemes.”

Jones’ two interceptions with the Raiders haven’t just been interceptions; he’s had pick-sixes in two straight games against the Los Angeles Chargers in Week 15…

…and the Kansas City Chiefs in Week 16.

Making the most of what your players have to offer is one of the hallmarks of good coaching. Antonio Pierce has done that across the board, and that’s just one of many reasons the Raiders have no need for a coaching search at this point.

Antonio Pierce achieving goal of getting Maxx Crosby energy out of Raiders defense

Antonio Pierce achieving goal of getting Maxx Crosby energy out of Raiders defense

Any coach would tell you he’d like to take the kind of energy Maxx Crosby has every day, bottle it, and sell it. It’s a nice thought, but just a fantasy, right? A coach couldn’t *really* do that, right? Don’t tell that to Antonio Pierce. That’s what he stated as his goal from day one as Raiders interim head coach.

“What I’d like to see those guys keep doing, and Patrick Graham, let loose. Put your ears back, let the dogs loose,” Pierce said at his introductory press conference back on November 1. “When the Raiders are rolling on defense, you guys see it. It comes through the TV. Maxx Crosby’s energy, I’m trying to match his today. I’ve got to match that for the next 10 to 12 weeks.”

The phrase ‘easier said than done’ comes to mind. After all, if it could be done, you’d think one of the Raiders coaches would have tapped into it at some point over the past five seasons since Crosby joined the team.

As seemingly unlikely as it may have seemed, from all indications, he’s done it.

The Raiders defense is playing on another level. Everything he’s done to get them to step up has worked. They have been the best defense in the NFL over his seven weeks as head coach, holding opponents to a league-low 15.28 points per game.

They’re opportunistic too. Pierce took over a team dead last in turnover differential (-8) with just eight takeaways in their first eight games. They’ve had 13 takeaways in the seven games since and have jumped up to 21st in the league in turnover differential (-3).

This included four defensive touchdowns over the past two weeks. One in a blowout of the Chargers and the other in a big upset win in Kansas City over the defending Super Bowl champion Chiefs.

While Pierce is not ready to call them ‘great’, he is seeing his lofty original goal coming to fruition.

“I think you’ve seen our defense match Maxx’s energy and effort and now production, and you’re seeing that,” Pierce said Friday. “At first it was Robert Spillane, okay, now it’s a couple other guys. Now you’re seeing 11 bad boys hunting each and every play. Now it’s a race to the ball, right? I call it roll calling the ball, get 11 hats to the ball, everybody get in the family picture. So, for me it’s very satisfying to see them buy into that of what we talked about the effort and matching your best players. Maxx’s job is to bring all those guys along and keep striving to stay in front, that’s what we want. And when we get that, you get the product that you got on the field.”

It may go without saying that you can’t simply ask and receive Maxx Crosby kind of energy from a player. That player has to be capable of it. As Pierce noted, he saw Spillane step up to try and match that energy all season. But several others have joined the party now as well.

The first was Amik Robertson, who had an interception, a forced fumble, and two pass breakups in Pierce’s first game since taking over as head coach. And it helped the Raiders score over 20 points for the first time this season.

The pass rush certain helped as well with a total of eight sacks. It was, of course, led by Crosby’s three sacks, but also included Malcom Koonce’s first sack of the season. All leading to the team being able to spark up all the cigars Crosby bought after the game.

No one has come up more of late than Crosby’s complement on the opposite end of the defensive line, Malcolm Koonce.

Koonce has put up seven sacks this season — all of which coming over the past seven games. And over the past two big wins, he has five sacks, two of which were the strip variety. One of those forced fumbles was returned for a touchdown by DT John Jenkins.

That was one of four defensive touchdowns the Raiders have had over the past two weeks. That included a Bilal Nichols scoop and score off a fumble and two pick sixes by Jack Jones.

Jones is well known for having been coached by Pierce in high school at Long Beach Poly and college at Arizona State. Clearly, the two are a good fit together as coach and player.

Crosby has been lobbying for Pierce to return as head coach after this season. The fifth year edge rusher has backed that up with his play. And the defense has been setting about to back him up in that endeavor.

Raiders Week 16 snap counts vs Chiefs: CB Amik Robertson leads team in snaps

CB Amik Robertson led Raiders in snaps and had a career-high 8 tackles vs Chiefs

The Raiders have gotten contributions from some unexpected places of late. That goes especially on defense where they’ve been one of the league’s top units since Antonio Pierce took over as interim head coach.

One of Pierce’s favorite players is Amik Robertson, who is a firey cornerback always out to prove he is better than people have given him credit for over the years.

The 5-9, 183-pounder saw every snap on defense along with three on special teams. His 79 snaps led the team. It was just the fifth time in his career he played every snap on defense. And his 76 defensive snaps were his second most ever. The result was a career-high eight combined tackles.

All told, the Raiders starting secondary of Robertson, Jack Jones, Nate Hobbs, Marcus Epps, and Tre’von Moehrig missed just one snap on defense (Jones).

Offense Spec Tms
Player Pos Num Pct Num Pct
Dylan Parham G 55 100% 3 12%
Thayer Munford T 55 100% 3 12%
Aidan O’Connell QB 55 100% 0 0%
Andre James C 55 100% 0 0%
Greg Van Roten G 53 96% 3 12%
Jermaine Eluemunor T 53 96% 3 12%
Davante Adams WR 50 91% 1 4%
Austin Hooper TE 49 89% 0 0%
Jakobi Meyers WR 45 82% 1 4%
Zamir White RB 42 76% 0 0%
Tre Tucker WR 22 40% 0 0%
Jakob Johnson FB 19 35% 14 56%
Cole Fotheringham TE 19 35% 8 32%
Ameer Abdullah RB 12 22% 14 56%
Hunter Renfrow WR 11 20% 1 4%
DJ Turner WR 4 7% 16 64%
Kolton Miller T 2 4% 3 12%
Jordan Meredith G 2 4% 3 12%
Brandon Bolden RB 1 2% 21 84%
Justin Herron T 1 2% 3 12%
Defense Spec Tms
Player Pos Num Pct Num Pct
Amik Robertson CB 76 100% 3 12%
Robert Spillane LB 76 100% 1 4%
Maxx Crosby DE 76 100% 0 0%
Tre’von Moehrig FS 76 100% 0 0%
Marcus Epps SS 76 100% 0 0%
Nate Hobbs CB 76 100% 0 0%
Jack Jones CB 75 99% 0 0%
Divine Deablo LB 66 87% 0 0%
Malcolm Koonce DE 50 66% 12 48%
Tyree Wilson DE 43 57% 5 20%
Adam Butler DT 36 47% 3 12%
Bilal Nichols DT 26 34% 5 20%
John Jenkins DT 26 34% 5 20%
Jerry Tillery DT 23 30% 3 12%
Janarius Robinson DE 21 28% 8 32%
Brandon Facyson CB 9 12% 0 0%
Isaiah Pola-Mao FS 5 7% 17 68%
Special Teams Spec Tms
Player Pos Num Pct Num Pct
Curtis Bolton LB 0 0% 22 88%
Luke Masterson LB 0 0% 22 88%
Christopher Smith SS 0 0% 12 48%
Tyler Hall CB 0 0% 10 40%
Amari Burney LB 0 0% 10 40%
AJ Cole III P 0 0% 9 36%
Jacob Bobenmoyer LS 0 0% 9 36%
DeAndre Carter WR 0 0% 8 32%
Daniel Carlson K 0 0% 8 32%
Jakorian Bennett CB 0 0% 5 20%

Ballers & Busters for Raiders Week 16 win over Chiefs

Ballers & Busters for Raiders Week 16 win over Chiefs

A month ago the Chiefs boat raced the Raiders in Las Vegas to go 8-3 on the season take a commanding lead in the AFC Playoff race. At that time, it seemed you could chalk up another win for the Chiefs when the Raiders came to Arrowhead on Christmas Day.

Since then things have taken a turn for both teams. The Chiefs have been very beatable and the Raiders defense has been extremely stingy and opportunistic.

These teams collided on that same trajectory and the result was a stunner with the Raiders defense almost singlehandedly taking down Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs 20-14.

Fans were in disbelief after Raiders CB Jack Jones appeared to pull a football away from a young Chiefs fan

Did he go full Grinch on Christmas?!

The Kansas City Chiefs and Las Vegas Raiders have one of the fiercer rivalries in the NFL, and Jack Jones might have secured himself a spot in the rivalry’s storied history on Monday.

It’s possible that he went into full Grinch mode.

During the first half of the Christmas Day matchup in Kansas City, Jones jumped the route on a pass from Patrick Mahomes and ran back the interception for a touchdown. It was Jones’ second straight game with a pick-six, and to plenty of fans watching, it looked like Jones snubbed a young fan in the process.

After the touchdown, Jones started to hand the football to a young Chiefs fan seated in the first row and abruptly pulled it back. Though it appeared that some adult fans were reaching for the football and could have contributed to the pull-back, it’s entirely possible that Jones just wanted to teach the kid a lesson about rivalries on Christmas Day. The broadcast didn’t show if the kid ended up with the football or not.

Still, what we did see was enough to have NFL fans shocked. Raiders fans, though, loved the apparent antics from the cornerback.

Watch: Raiders get consecutive defensive TDs to take 17-7 halftime lead over Chiefs

Watch: Raiders get consecutive defensive TDs to take 17-7 halftime lead over Chiefs

What an insane game we have on Christmas Day in Kansas City. And most of it has been by the Raiders defense.

The day began with the Raiders defense holding the Chiefs to -18 yards with no first downs in the first quarter. That included a couple sacks from Malcolm Koonce and Adam Butler.

The second quarter the scoring started.

Chiefs got it going first. They went on a long drive on offense, and got the touchdown on a trick play that looked almost just like the one the Raiders scored on against the Chargers last week.

This one had Isaiah Pacheco line up in the backfield with Patrick Mahomes out wide left. Just as Brandon Bolden got the direct snap last week for the Raiders, Pacheco took the ball and faked the sweep to Mahomes and ran for the touchdown.

That’s as good as it would get for the Chiefs in the first half.

The Raiders offense couldn’t answer with a score of their own, but on the first play of the Chiefs’ possession, they fumbled the handoff, Bilal Nichols picked it up, and scored the touchdown.

The Chiefs would get it back down 10-7. Then on the first play AGAIN, Jack Jones stepped in front of a Patrick Mahomes pass and was gone for the pick six.

The Chiefs would go on a long drive after those consecutive defensive TD’s, but the Raiders defense would stiffen up to force them to settle for a field goal. And it was missed to keep the score at 17-7 at the half.

Raiders score 2 defensive touchdowns in 7 seconds against the Chiefs

The Raiders get 14 points in 7 seconds off Chiefs gaffes

Christmas play at Arrowhead on Monday was sloppy bordering on careless.

The Las Vegas Raiders and Kansas City Chiefs had trouble holding the football.

After a trick play for KC turned into a Chiefs TD, they tried to get fancy on their next drive and it backfired into a Las Vegas score.

Isiah Pacheco took the direct snap and either tried to exchange the football with Patrick Mahomes or simply misunderstood the call.

The football was fumbled and Bilal Nichols picked it up and rumbled 8 yards for a TD.

On the next offensive play for the Chiefs, Mahomes threw a pick to Jack Jones, who returned it 33 yards for a score.

That made two touchdowns in seven seconds and 14 points in an unconventional way.

Why? The first PAT attempt was botched and the Raiders went for two the next time and converted for a 17-7 lead in the second quarter.

Raiders, Chiefs final injury report: TE Michael Mayer OUT

Raiders TE Michael Mayer OUT, Josh Jacobs Questionable vs Chiefs

While the Raiders may get a few offensive starters back this week against the Chiefs, they will lose another. Tight end Michael Mayer is officially OUT with a toe injury.

They will for sure see the return of center Andre James who was removed from the injury report after missing the previous two weeks with an ankle injury.

Still Questionable are left tackle Kolton Miller (shoulder) and RB Josh Jacobs.

Jaacobs seemed on the path to returning this week and head coach Antonio Pierce seemed optimistic he would play earlier this week, but after a day back at practice, he was sidelined again, so once again, his status is uncertain.

Jack Jones landed on the injury report Saturday with a knee injury after not being on the injury report before that. He too is Questionable for the game.

The Chiefs will for sure be without three players. RB Jerrick McKinnon, WR Kadarius Toney, and T Donovan Smith are all OUT. WR Mecole Hardman began his 21-day window to return from injured reserve, but will not be activated this week.