Raiders weren’t going to let Chiefs out of the deep end

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — That “O’’ in Oakland? No longer does it equal the Raiders’ win total for the year. The streak is over. The streak ended here, at the O.co Coliseum — maybe they should change it to the 1.co Coliseum — on a Thursday night of rain and success.

Go ahead and say it, the drought has ended, for Nor Cal, for the Raiders.

It was inevitable. The football, that is, not the downpour, although the forecasters said that too was coming. The way Raiders interim coach Tony Sparano said a win was coming.

Teams don’t go through a 16-game NFL schedule without a victory. Sure, the 2008 Detroit Lions did, but since the 1976 Tampa Bay Bucs, an expansion doomed to failure by the system, the Lions were the only team.

Somehow, the Raiders were going to win one.

And they did against the Kansas City Chiefs, who had won their previous five games in a row and were tied for the AFC West lead.

They did by sweeping ahead 14-0 early in the second quarter. By letting that lead go and then, on a 9-yard touchdown pass from rookie quarterback Derek Carr to James Jones in the closing minutes, going back in front and winning 24-20.

“We’d been getting close,” said Sparano, who was coaching his seventh game since replacing Dennis Allen. “We’d been getting better in practice. I saw a different look in this team.”

And now there’s a different look with their record. One win may not seem like much, but to the contrary it’s huge when you’ve lost 10 out of 10 for the season and cobble that to the six straight defeats that concluded last year.

Not since Nov. 17, 2013, 368 days if you’re counting, had Oakland come out ahead.

“Those losses had been hard,” said Carr. He took over as starter from the veteran Matt Schaub before the first game. So since last year at Fresno State, he was always on the losing side. Until Thursday.

There was unabated joy in the Raider locker room. Such yelling and shouting. It was as if they had won the Super Bowl, not merely a scheduled game. “All that frustration that we’ve gone through when something goes wrong at the end,” said linebacker Sio Moore.

Moore and rookie Khalil Mack, also winless as a pro, did a bit of unprofessional celebrating — in the Chiefs' backfield — slapping hands after sacking quarterback Alex Smith on the K.C. 48 with 28 seconds. But before a penalty could be called for delay of game, Oakland wisely signaled time out. One more play, an incomplete pass, and the Raiders owned the ball. And the win.

“I was so caught up in the moment, man,” said Moore, who’s in his second year. “That was an error I’ve got to clean because in another situation — in all seriousness — that can make the difference. I do apologize for putting the guys in that situation. I can’t let emotions get the best of me.”

For 10 weeks, teams have been getting the best of the Raiders, although the way Oakland played defense in losing 13-6 to the Chargers last Sunday was verification that they were improved — if without results. Until Thursday night.

“I don’t know how to explain the feeling,” Moore said about finally winning a game. “It’s a good feeling to see through the culmination of weeks all the work that we’ve been putting in.

“We decided when we came in at halftime (with a 14-3 lead) that we weren’t going to let them get out of deep end of the pool, and we were going to finish it out.”

The Chiefs made it to the shallow end, but then the Raiders swamped them again.

Oakland scored first on an impressive eight-play drive, Latavius Murray bulling the final 11 yards. Then Murray dashed 90 yards two and a half minutes into the second quarter, and Oakland had its first 14-0 lead since the Twelth of Never.

“They blocked us,” said Chiefs coach Andy Reid, “(he) hit the hole, and we just weren’t able to catch him.

From two touchdowns back, Kansas City did catch the Raiders, however, and the guess was it would yet another Oakland defeat. Not at all.

“We learned a little something today,” said Sparano. “Learned something about ourselves. Today they just refused to give up the rope. My hat is off to the people in that locker room. Greatest feeling in the world is to see them smile. Helluva bunch of guys. They don’t stop playing. We don’t always do it right, but they play hard.

“Today the offense took the football down the field and did it in the old-fashioned Raider way. They ran it. They ran it. And we made a big play. It was a heck of a thing to watch, and if you didn’t learn anything from it, I apologize to you.”

No apologies needed this time. Only kudos.

Raiders' best game still not a winning game

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — He’s a kid, a rookie, a cornerback on an NFL team that five games into a painful season has changed coaches and even though winless well into October perhaps on Sunday finally changed direction.

“We all feel like we did something today,” said TJ Carrie.

What the Oakland Raiders did, at last, was compete, keep a game in doubt, show they are anything but hopeless.

What the Raiders didn’t do was win. As they haven’t won this season. The San Diego Chargers came from behind and beat Oakland 31-28 at O.co Coliseum. Even with professed Raider fan Tiger Woods in attendance.

It was the Raiders’ best game of the season, on offense. Quarterback Derek Carr, also a rookie, threw four touchdown passes. Darren McFadden ran for 80 yards. So encouraging.

But the Chargers, 5-1, as compared to the Raiders, 0-5, controlled the ball, had it 37 minutes of the total 60, gained 423 yards. It is a cliché that defense wins. In this case, for the Raiders, unable to halt Charger drives, especially the final one that climaxed with a Branden Oliver touchdown with 1:56 remaining.

A new coach for the Raiders, an interim coach, Tony Sparano, who was chosen to replace hard-luck Dennis Allen two weeks ago. An old result.

The players are the same. They seemed more spirited, more aggressive, more upbeat. But they were no more successful.

There are two requirements to create a winning football team, a defense and a quarterback. Without a defense, you virtually never get the ball — and when your time of possession is 15 fewer minutes, as it was for the Raiders, they virtually never had the ball. Without a quarterback, well, he touches the ball on every offensive play.

The Raiders appear to have the quarterback in Carr. He has started every game, and if Carrie, the cornerback, who got beat often enough, said he learned something, so did we about Carr. He’s poised. He’s aggressive. And he has a fantastic arm. Hey, on the third play from scrimmage he unloaded a 77-yard beauty to Andre Holmes for a touchdown. Shades of Peyton Manning.

“I thought our quarterback made some big plays,” said Sparano. He also made some mistakes, getting called for intentional grounding and then in the last minute, on a meticulous drive that seemed destined to produce a game-tying field goal, throwing a ball to the Charger 10 that was intercepted, ending not only a chance for victory but also a record.

Since the merger of the mid 1960s, the only rookies to throw four touchdown passes without an interception in a game were Robert Griffin III and Trent Edwards.

“He’s getting better and better,” said Sparano of Carr, who played collegiately at Fresno State. "On that first touchdown, they came with pressure, we expected the pressure, the guys handled it pretty well, but Derek kept through the progression and getting the ball to the right guy. That’s progress.

“The play at the end of the game, it’s second and very short (1 yard), we felt like we’d make the first down, took a shot and that kid (Jason Verrett, also a rookie, from Fairfield, about 35 miles from the Coliseum) made a great play.”

Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers, as expected, made a ton of great plays. He threw three touchdown passes and has 15 in six games, with only two interceptions.

“We thought about blitzing him,” Sparano said about Rivers. “We blitzed him a couple of times early. We got to him a couple of different ways, but with Philip, as I said earlier in the week, if you don’t tackle him he’s a guy that buys time. He’s going to hurt you in those situations, and he hurt us in one or two of those situations today. You have to pick your poison a little bit with him.”

They’ll find no antidote in Carson Palmer of Arizona, next week’s opponent. The Cardinals are 4-1, and Palmer, who was with the Raiders three years ago, has recovered from his injuries.

“That’s the best team in the league according to some,” Sparano said of the Cardinals, and then switching to San Diego, “That’s one of the best teams out there today, and our kids played hard. We have to be in these kind of football games and finally one of these kind of games. That’s how we turn this thing around.”

They turn it around by shutting down the opponent, by playing the sort of defense the Raiders have not displayed for years.

Carrie could be part of that renaissance.

“His impact,” Sparano said of Carrie, ”was in two areas. I felt him challenging the ball on defense. I felt him around the ball. And then on special teams, on kickoffs (3 for 85 yards) and the punt returns, he really did a nice job.

“Look at TJ. Look at (rookie linebacker) Khalil Mack flying around and Gabe Jackson and these kids. It’s a good place to be right now.”

Did he mean for the Raiders or, as was the case for the Chargers and their dominant time of possession, the opposition? For Oakland there weren’t enough stops. And at 0-5, there certainly aren’t enough wins.