Raiders find another way to lose another close game
The ball was lying on the field waiting to be picked up for what would have been a turnover that would have put the Raiders in excellent position to pick up a desperately needed victory.
Instead, it slipped from the grasp of rookie linebacker Darien Butler, and the Colts scored a touchdown on the next play to give them a lead they wouldn’t relinquish in a 25-20 win over the Raiders on Sunday at Allegiant Stadium.
The failure to find a way to win yet another close game is becoming a consistent trend in what has become a lost season. It was the Raiders’ third straight loss to a team with a losing record, and this one came against a team with a debuting interim coach with no experience beyond the high school level and an offensive play-caller who had never done the job at any level.
Coach Josh McDaniels called it a broken record. Quarterback Derek Carr shed tears as he discussed another opportunity to win slipping through the Raiders’ fingers.
“It’s the same thing as last week, same as all the other weeks pretty much,” wide receiver Davante Adams said of the mood of the locker room after the Raiders dropped to 2-7 overall and 0-6 in one-score games.
In all six of those losses, the Raiders had the ball late in the game with a chance to tie or take the lead. They fell short yet again Sunday when consecutive passes to Foster Moreau and Adams were broken up in the end zone in the final minute.
“Sunday is supposed to be fun, and that’s the least fun day of the week right now,” Adams said. “That’s a problem. We’ve got to fix that.”
It almost didn’t come down to the final drive for the Raiders, who led 20-19 with less than six minutes to play when cornerback Sam Webb stripped Colts receiver Michael Pittman of the ball inside the Raiders’ 30-yard line.
The ball fell right to the feet of Butler, who appeared to be caught between falling on the ball and picking it up to try for a return. His indecision and inability to secure possession gave the Colts time to jump on the pile, and Pittman ended up coming away with the ball.
“I just have to fall on that ball, keep points off the board and give our offense a chance to score more points,” Butler said. “That would have been the best idea. I just didn’t fall on it.”
Things went from bad to worse, as Matt Ryan, a plodding quarterback who earlier in the drive burned the Raiders for a 39-yard run to convert a third down, found Parris Campbell for a 35-yard touchdown on the next play for the final margin.
“Of course we wanted to recover that ball,” cornerback Amik Robertson said. “That was a great play by a young guy in Sam Webb, and unfortunately we didn’t get the ball, so we had to focus on the next play. We just have to play better.”
The offense got the ball with five minutes to play and drove down the field only to come up short. McDaniels pointed out it was similar to other weeks, in which one or two plays weren’t made and ended up being the difference.
“It’s a team sport,” he said. “We had an opportunity to go down there and score on offense. We didn’t quite finish in any phase.
“On the recovery, there’s an awareness piece to that. The way we’ve discussed it, if you feel there’s a lot of bodies around you, you want to fall on the ball. And if you feel like you’re in open space, you may have an opportunity to advance it. I think that was maybe more the first category. There were some people right behind him. I don’t know if he saw them or felt them.”
The end result was another loss that left the Raiders with more questions than answers and many of the same issues popping up yet again.
Like a nonexistent pass rush against one of the NFL’s most sacked teams. A slow start. A bad run fit that led to a 66-yard Jonathan Taylor touchdown run.
And so many penalties. The Raiders were flagged for 10, many self-inflicted mistakes that put the offense in difficult situations.
“We played behind the sticks as usual,” Adams said. “That’s when we don’t have success on offense. Holding penalties and a bunch of (expletive) that doesn’t allow you to move the ball and have realistic shots at converting. That’s where we’ve lived a lot of this year, and that’s what happened again.”
A broken record.
Contact Adam Hill at ahill@reviewjournal.com. Follow @AdamHillLVRJ on Twitter.