Unless you’re one of those people who considers a 31-24 loss no better
than getting blasted 38-0, it could have been worse.
The Raiders gave the smallest non-strike home crowd (32,218) since 1967
a reason to stay interested until the game’s final moments.
When the Houston Texans run up yardage figures like they did Sunday at
the Coliseum, it wouldn’t have been unusual to see the Raiders go into
one of their patented tortoise shells and simply absorb the beating.
The biggest problem the Raiders had with the way they lost to the Texans
isn’t that they’d seen it all before in past years, it was that they’d
seen it all before during the week of practice.
They watched the Texans run their zone blocking, stretch-and-cut running
game time after time, with quarterback Matt Schaub then operating with
bootlegs to either side and play-action passing.
Then the Raiders went out and played as if they’d never seen it before.
“I thought they came in and did exactly what they’ve tried to do all
year and that’s establish their run game and they did a good job of
it,’’ Raiders coach Tom Cable said. “We never seemed to get a handle on
it, or slow it down. I thought offensively (the problem was) our
inability to have some consistent pass protection.
“We got whipped on both sides of the line of scrimmage. That’s the
bottom line.’’
That whole offseason of making personnel moves and creating a sense of
urgency to stop the run?
The Texans benched the NFL’s leading rusher, Arian Foster, for the first
quarter for disciplinary reasons and he still rushed for 131 yards on 16
carries, including a 74-yard touchdown run in the third quarter.
Houston had 249 yards on 36 carries. If Gary Kubiak had wanted to really
punish Foster for his tardiness to meetings and practice, he should have
let backup Derrick Ward (80 yards, 12 carries) stay in the game and go
for 175.
The play of the Raiders offensive line had Bruce Gradkowski playing
under duress for most of the game. He completed 24 of 39 passes for 278
yards but fumbled twice, losing one, and also had a pair of interceptions.
The last one came when a protection breakdown on a blitz forced an
intentional grounding call, which eventually brought up fourth-and-16.
Gradkowski got off what should have been a first-down pass to Louis
Murphy, only to have it bounce off his body and into the hands of Troy
Nolan for a diving interception with less than two minutes to play.
News, notes and quotes as the 1-3 Raiders pick themselves off the deck
and look down the barrel of a 13-game losing streak to the San Diego
Chargers next Sunday at the Coliseum:
– At least the Raiders kept the crowd entertained. They deserved it for
bothering to come out at all. The 32,218 count was the smallest in a
non-strike year since Dec. 24, 1967, when the Raiders beat the Buffalo
Bills 28-21 in the regular-season finale.
No paid attendance figure was ever lower in Los Angeles.
Keep in mind it’s a tickets sold figure. No way there was 30,000 people
at the stadium. It looked like a preseason game.
– There were some blunt assessments of the whipping they got from the
Texans.
“We didn’t stop the run,’’ defensive tackle Richard Seymour said. “I’m
not a big stat guy, but the stats tell the story. It’s demoralizing when
a team can run the ball at will. We didn’t stop the run and there is no
excuse for that.’’
Said defensive tackle Tommy Kelly: “It’s a (bleeping) shock to me. I
thought we would handle it better. As a defense, we’ve got to play
better, I’ve got to play better. Can’t nobody go out there and say
nothing after they run for 200 yards in your house without their best
player, basically.’’
Kelly says he’s as comfortable as a nose tackle as he is in the
three-technique spot, but when John Henderson is out, he’s almost always
on the nose.
The plan all week was for the Raiders defensive line to disrupt the
Texans offensive line, break up their zone schemes, or break the
momentum of the rope, as Cable put it. Instead of breaking up the rope,
the Raiders were hung by it.
“We knew what we were getting ready to go against,’’ cornerback Nnamdi
Asomugha said. “ It was stressed the whole week, about the zone blocking
scheme, a great running scheme. And they have the boot off of that. And
they came in and did exactly what it was. It was just a matter of us
being able to stop in more consistently.
“We didn’t do that. We played well in spurts today. The rest of the
time, they had their way with us.’’
– Middle linebacker Rolando McClain is fond of downplaying anything he’s
seen in the NFL as having already seen it at Alabama in the SEC. He
wasn’t saying anything Sunday, brushing off the only reporter who
approached him with a brusque no comment and heading for the door.
No reason to explain why he was walled off tight end Joel Dreesen on
Ward’s game-opening 33-yard scoring run, or how Foster beat him for an
11-yard touchdown pass to make the score 31-21.
That stuff did happen all the time in the SEC. Except it happened to
Vanderbilt.
– We’ll have a better idea Wednesday when Darren McFadden does or does
not practice, but it appears run of good health ended on a 23-yard run
when he pulled up and reached for his right hamstring, left the game,
and did not return.
McFadden said his training camp injury was to his left hamstring, not
the one he hurt Sunday.
“I was just trying to go for another gear and I just pulled up,’’
McFadden said. “I’m going to go to the trainers and see what they have
me doing. I’ll take it day to day.’’
McFadden had 12 rushes for 47 yards and caught six passes for 82 more, a
nice bit of strategy considering the hard-charging Houston front seven.
– McFadden will likely hand the baton this week to Michael Bush, who
looks up to the task with seven rushes for 40 yards, a 2-yard touchdown
run and two receptions for 16 yards.
– It looked for a moment as if Jason Campbell would get back in the
lineup when Gradkowski took a second wallop from Bernard Pollard in the
right shoulder area on a third down play. The Raiders punted, and
Gradkowski went to the locker room for a minute.
Gradkowski insisted he was fine, threw a few balls on the sideline and
returned.
– The Raiders had 20 or more first downs (24) in four straight games
since 2002, when they had a seven-game streak and a five-game streak.
– Langston Walker and Asomugha, both of whom have seen Raiders seasons
go south in a hurry after a poor start, insist opening 1-3 will not
factor in to practice and preparation.
“This is the 2010 version of the Raiders,’’ Walker said. “We’re not
worried about what we would have done last year, two years ago or
whatever. We’re playing for right now and those types of things, for me
personally, don’t enter into my head.
“I can vouch for the 53 other guys on this team that we’re not thinking
about that. We’re thinking about going out there and winning and
whipping somebody’s ass.”
Walker found himself with the unenviable task of blocking end Mario
Williams, who the Texans flopped to the left side with good results.
“I’m confident because we’re in games more than we were in the past,’’
Asomugha said. “Plus, there are so many new players that they don’t know
what `Here we go again’ means. I think we’ll be fine.’’
– Louis Murphy (clavicle) and Darrius Heyward-Bey (groin) weren’t deemed
ready to play until pregame warm-ups, with the team poised to activate
Shaun Bodiford from the practice squad if necessary.
By game’s end, Murphy had one catch (he was targeted seven times) and
Heyward Bey one (he was targeted five times). That’s 2-for-12 for seven
yards to the two starting wide outs.
Murphy conceded he didn’t know if he’d be able to play with his clavicle
injury and was limited all week. It’s clear he wasn’t himself, although
he declined to blame his game-ending bobble and interception from
Gradkowski on the injury.
Moments before Heyward-Bey and was late to look and adjust to another
Gradkowski pass and the ball hit off one hand and fell incomplete. He
had another very difficult chance near the end zone on a leap bounce free.
Neither were easy plays or even plays he should be expected to make.
Both were at least a possibility for an upper tier receiver.
– Some nice offensive adjustments by the Raiders in getting Miller
involved in the outside game (often in conjunction with a Heyward-Bey
deeper route on the same side). He caught a career-high 11 receptions
for 122 yards and a touchdown in 13 targets.
That gives Gradkowski a 131.4 passer rating going to Miller and 16.6 to
his starting wide receivers.
– The Raiders were 3-for-3 scoring touchdowns in the red zone after
being 3-for-13 coming in. Hue Jackson made the best call of his tenure
as offensive coordinator on a 13-yard touchown pass from Gradkowski to
Marcel Reece on third and goal from the 2. Virtually the entire Houston
defense bit on the McFadden run, with Reece drifting uncovered into the
end zone.
– Remember coach Cable’s 24-point plan? The Raiders would be in good
shape if they scored 24 points per game. Since then, they scored 23
against Arizona and lost by a point. Then they scored 24 and still lost.
As for penalties, the Raiders didn’t have their first one until deep
into the second half (an illegal block on a return by Brandon Myers) and
later added an intentional grounding call on Gradkowski which preceded
the final interception.
– Other players who didn’t finish the game were linebacker Thomas Howard
(knee strain) and running back Michael Bennett (hamstring, of course).
