Answers missing on Janikowski’s misses

By Art Spander
 
OAKLAND — The answers were not there, at least from the people who needed to give them, the field goal kicker, his holder and, even though it’s his job to protect the men who play for him — no matter their lack of performance — the head coach.

The Raiders, well, still are the Raiders, a team of almosts and could-have-beens, a team that when presented a chance to take a resounding step out from the depths of mediocrity remains notably incapable.

Tennessee got a touchdown pass, a 10-yarder from Ryan Fitzpatrick to Kendall Wright with only 10 seconds remaining Sunday, and came back to beat the Raiders, 23-19. And so Oakland is 4-7, and the good thoughts after last weekend’s win over Houston become worthless.

Especially with a game at Dallas on Thanksgiving.

The man once called the premier place kicker in the NFL, Sebastian Janikowski, attempted six field goals for the Raiders, tying his own team record, which tells you something about the Oakland offense, able to score only one touchdown.

“Seabass” missed two of those attempts, one from 32 yards, which tells you a great deal about Janikowski, who at age 35 and playing his 14th season as a pro no longer seems reliable.

As a kicker, that is. He’s never been reliable as a postgame interview.

When the media flooded into the Raider locker room at O.co Coliseum, both Janikowski and his holder, punter Marquette King, conveniently had fled the scene, thereby avoiding any queries about what happened on the misses, especially the figurative chip shot, the 32-yarder.

It was reported that after that one, tried with four seconds left in the half and Oakland ahead 9-6, Janikowski told sideline reporter Lincoln Kennedy — the former Raider lineman — he was not pleased with King’s hold.

This is the first year for King, who replaced Shane Lechler, but this was the 11th game of the season.

Dennis Allen, the Raiders' coach, probably wished he didn’t have to face the music or the media, but that is a requirement of the job. That doesn’t mean Allen has to disclose his true feelings or symbolically throw his athletes under the bus.

So Allen, looking and sounding particularly glum, conceded, “There’s several things that you can look back on — we missed two field goals, we let them come out and get the lead at halftime, third downs weren’t good enough . . . ”

Not at all. The Titans had 18 third-down plays, and made first downs on 10 of them, two times on third and 11. Fitzpatrick, Harvard educated, outsmarted or outplayed the Oakland defense. Tennessee hung on to the ball. The Titans’ time of possession was almost 36 minutes.

But if Janikowski hits those fielders, the Raiders win. Indeed, as the adage tells us, if wishes were horses, beggars would ride. Grudgingly we try to forget the “what-ifs.”

Still, Seabass is paid big money to make place kicks, especially little ones.

He hit on field goals of 52, 48 and 24 yards, but missing that 32-yarder — wide left — just before intermission was a blow psychologically as well as numerically. If he makes that field goal, the Raiders are six ahead as they prance off the turf, and they’re feeling particularly satisfied. This was unsatisfying.

“We’re not making them,” said Allen, “not consistently enough.”  “We,” in effect, might mean “he,” as in Janikowski, but successful place kicking requires all sorts of individuals: the snapper, the blockers, the holder and not least the kicker, in the Raiders’ case the left-footed Janikowski.

“I feel like Sebastian is going to work through this,” Allen said. “I have all the confidence that when I send him out there it’s going to go through. So it’s just something that we have to go through and get better in that area.”

His explanation is known as “coach-speak,” words that when linked together tell us very little.

Matt McGloin, the undrafted rookie from Penn State, was the Raiders’ starter at quarterback for a second straight game. He had four passes knocked down, and because he’s listed at only 6-foot-1 and pro teams like their QBs at least 6-4, one might sense a reason McGloin was not picked in the draft.

McGloin did make a nice throw to fullback Marcel Reece, who ran down the sideline for a 27-yard touchdown with some six minutes left in the game to give Oakland a 19-16 lead.

“I thought Matt played well,” said Allen. “He led us back when we needed a touchdown, got us the touchdown to give us the lead. We just couldn’t hold it defensively.”

Not untrue. Either is the issue of whether on field goals the ball is being held properly and then kicked properly.

“I’d say it’s a field goal unit problem,” explained Allen. “There are 11 guys out there; it’s not all on one guy. We have to improve in that area — snap, kick, protection. The goal is to get the ball through the uprights . . . ”

Which the Raiders could do only four times out of six tries and thus lost by four points. That hurts.

Raiders' defense reverts to terrible past

By Art Spander

OAKLAND, Calif. — This was the regression game, the reminder that the Raiders haven’t moved that far from their recent, terrible past.

This was the game where the defense couldn’t have covered a hole in a ground, much less a Philadelphia receiver.

This was the game that made Eagles quarterback Nick Foles part of history.

“It’s time for us,” Dennis Allen, the Raiders' coach said on Friday. “If we’re going to do something, we need to start making some sort of move.” 

He didn’t mean backwards, which is where Oakland went.

All those glowing words about the Raiders’ improved defense? All those thoughts the Raiders might reach .500 as the calendar reached November? Worthless.

Which in the 49-20 rout Sunday by the Eagles at O.co Coliseum is what the Oakland defense proved to be.

This was why the Eagles brought in Chip Kelly from the University of Oregon, to leave the opposition breathless as well as bewildered.

Philly didn’t dominate the clock or the statistics. Oakland had the ball 37 minutes 54 seconds, compared with 22:06 for the Eagles. Oakland had 560 yards, compared with 542 for the Eagles.

But Philly averaged 9.5 yards each play. Philly scored and scored. And scored.

Foles is the backup to the injured Michael Vick. He tied an NFL single-game record with seven touchdown passes. And of his 28 passes, only six were incomplete.

Seven touchdowns, six incompletions. What a replacement. What a nightmare for the Raiders, who are 3-5.

“We were out of place,” said Raider cornerback Tracy Porter. “We missed tackles. What NFL quarterbacks do is look for holes.”

In the Raiders, Foles found as many as in a hunk of Swiss cheese.

“They played their style, up-tempo,” said Porter. “And we weren’t able to match that. They came ready to play.”

What were the Raiders ready for? Or more accurately, were they ready for anything?

Rookie cornerback D.J. Hayden, Oakland’s first-round pick in the 2013 draft, wasn’t, including requests for a postgame interview, which he sloughed off with, “No, I’m good.”

In reality he was bad. Riley Cooper beat him for 17 yards 43 seconds into the second quarter to make it 14-3, then for 63 yards exactly three minutes later to make it 21-3.

“Nobody’s going to feel sorry for D.J.,” said Charles Woodson, the longtime all-pro defensive back who rejoined the Raiders again this season at age 37.

“He was the 12th pick in the draft. He was right there on those pass plays. I don’t think he located the receiver one time. Another time he slipped.”

That word, slipped, seemed appropriate for the entire Raider defense.

“I don’t know what to say,” added Woodson. “They executed their game plan from the word go. We never had an answer. You can read the press clippings. There were a lot of great things said about the defense. We took a beating, and we’ve got to stand up to it.”

Allen, in his second season as head coach, is not quick with the one-liners. No responses in the style of John McKay, who when being queried about his team’s execution said that he’d be in favor of it.

Allen remains wary of management, careful in his assessments, protective of his athletes.

“Obviously we didn’t hold up our end of the bargain,” he said. “We also realize we’re a better football team than what we displayed out there today, and we have to be better than that. Listen, I still have a lot of confidence in this defense. I think this defense is a good defense. We had a bad day. That happens.”

That happens to a team that either doesn’t completely extend the relentless demands of the NFL season or is not equipped physically or mentally to cope with those demands. Teams that tease, then buckle under pressure.

Everyone understood Nick Foles has a strong arm, yet he wasn’t even the starter. And now he’s in the books with people such as Sid Luckman, George Blanda and Peyton Manning.

“Their quarterback had seven touchdowns,” said Porter, “and we have to take that personally. We can’t give a guy seven touchdowns in a game, let alone let them put up 49 points. We couldn’t match their tempo.”

Philly, in the season’s and Kelly’s first game, beat Washington, 33-27, and the thinking was they were going to do to the NFL what Oregon has been doing to college football.

But the Eagles didn’t score an offensive touchdown in either of the two games preceding this one against Oakland, and the cynics said the Kelly system wouldn’t work in the pros. It worked against the Raiders.

“It’s an embarrassing loss,” said Oakland quarterback Terrelle Pryor, who came out of the game in the fourth quarter with a knee bruise.

“We just have to get better.”

Much, much better.

Raiders have a QB, a defense and a win

By Art Spander

OAKLAND, Calif. — They can’t finish. Not the way the coach would like. But oh, the Oakland Raiders can start. And survive. If they are not yet a complete football team, one that belongs among the NFL elite, they are at least a competent football team, as well as a team in progress.

A team finally with a defense and a quarterback, the two elements absolutely necessary for success at any level.        

The Raiders defeated the Pittsburgh Steelers, 21-18, Sunday at O.co Coliseum, and if this was a Steelers team far from greatness it still had Ben Roethlisberger and Troy Polamalu, players and leaders, and certainly the residue of history.

Pittsburgh-Oakland wakes up echoes, Franco Harris and Jack Tatum, Terry Bradshaw and Ken Stabler, Chuck Noll and John Madden. Days gone by, two teams wearing black, two franchises dressed in pride. The best against the best.

If that’s no longer true, the Steelers remain an attraction, if at 2-4 perhaps for the wrong reason, an example of unmet expectations. As there is a Raider Nation, fans far from the home base, so there is a Steeler Nation, clinging to memories. In sports, nobody forgets.

Raiders coach Dennis Allen won’t forget what he saw Sunday: the way Terrelle Pryor, on the game’s first offensive play, ran 93 yards for a touchdown, apparently the farthest ever by an NFL quarterback; the way Oakland limited the Steelers to 90 yards total — and eight yards rushing — in the first half; the way the Raiders kept hanging in after mistakes when maybe a year ago they would have folded.

“I thought our defense was outstanding,” said Allen. As we know, in football, baseball, basketball and hockey, defense wins. It certainly did for the Raiders, who won for the first time in 11 games coming off their bye week.

Oakland now is 3-4 in seven games this season. The Raiders on Sunday face the Philadelphia Eagles, a team where two quarterbacks, Michael Vick and Nick Foles, are injured and a third, rookie Matt Barkley, is unprepared. It’s all there for Oakland.

Pryor isn’t fully prepared yet either, but he’s adept and learning. He’s also quick and agile. “That big run by Terrelle,” said Allen, “obviously was a huge play to be able to start off and get the type of momentum against a defense where they haven’t given up a lot of explosive plays.”

The Steelers, leaning on defense, deferred after winning the coin toss and let the Raiders make the choice. The idea was Pittsburgh would go to its strength. The plan was a bust.

“We can’t choose to defer,” said Mike Tomlin, the Steelers' coach, “and allow them to explode, and we’re spotting seven on the first play of the game . . . It was a nice play for them, and obviously a poor play for us. Over-aggressive, I guess, could be a way to describe it.”

A way to describe this game was long and wearisome. There seemed to be an officials’ review on almost every play, ref John Parry and his clique unable to make the proper calls at the proper time, dragging this baby out 3 hours and 26 minutes.

Not that a crowd announced at 52,950 seemed to mind. Nobody left early, not with the Steelers trimming a 21-3 deficit to 21-18 in the closing minutes.

“We want to make sure the fans get their money’s worth,” was the opening remark by Allen. Step aside Jay Leno and David Letterman, here come the laughs. Or the smiles. Allen, with a pencil behind his ear and a visor on his head, is more accountant than comedian.

“You still have to learn how to finish better,” insisted Allen. “You get a team 21-3 . . . now listen, we knew this is the Pittsburgh Steelers. They’re not going to throw in the towel. They’re not going to give up. But when you have that type of lead, you have to have the killer instinct, and we’ve got to be able to come out and be more effective in the second half of the football game.”

On offense that is. The Raiders had 182 yards rushing at halftime. They had 183 at the end of the third quarter. That neither team scored in that third period enabled Oakland to bumble along.

“I think we had a phenomenal first half,” Pryor observed, “and then our defense had a phenomenal second half, so at the end of the day it’s a team win.”

At the end of the day Pryor, the 2011 supplemental draft pick from Ohio State, had 106 yards and that long touchdown on nine runs and 88 yards on 10 carefully thrown completions. He also had two less carefully thrown interceptions.

“I’m very proud of the offense, the offensive line, Darren (McFadden), Marcel (Reece), the outside guys blocking,” said Pryor. “We had the run game going very good.”

In the first half, they did. In the second half they ran for only 15 yards.

“It’s just another game,” said Pryor with a figurative shrug. “Another team (to overcome) in the roadblock. I’m very proud we got the W.”

Ah yes. Just win, baby. Against the rival Steelers, the Raiders did just that.

Why Raiders’ Matt Flynn is a backup

By Art Spander 

OAKLAND — He’s a backup, and there’s a reason. Matt Flynn has been an NFL quarterback more than five seasons now — this is his sixth — and through a varying set of circumstances, he rarely has been first-string.

Maybe wrong team, wrong place. Green Bay behind Aaron Rodgers, Seattle behind Russell Wilson.

More likely an inability to take control, to win games.

Going from nowhere to stardom is fantasy. If you can do the job in the NFL, you’ll get the job. The GMs and managers know who can play the most important position in football, and if they don’t they learn quickly enough.

What we learned, or relearned, is that Flynn doesn’t have the right stuff, although Raiders management didn’t realize that until acquiring him in a trade from the Seahawks.

Flynn works hard. Flynn is cooperative in interviews, including painful ones such as the one he had to undergo Sunday when, given the opportunity to lead the Raiders to a win, he couldn’t.

It began so well for Flynn and Oakland, a quick 14-0 lead, in part because of a rare blocked punt, in part because of an 18-yard Flynn pass to Mychal Rivera. Then the jolt back to reality, an interception returned 45 yards for a touchdown — the sequence known euphemistically as a “pick six” — and the seven sacks.

Before Sunday was over at the O.co Coliseum, the Washington Redskins had beaten the Raiders, 24-14.

A day and a half earlier, Terrelle Pryor was listed as the Raiders quarterback. Sure, he had incurred a concussion Monday night at Denver. And sure, Flynn, who had started only two other games in five years, had been preparing himself just in case. But as the week progressed so, we were told, had Pryor progressed.

“Pryor will start . . . according to league sources,” said one printed report Sunday morning.

Pryor, whose mobility and speed give the Raiders another dimension, another weapon.

Pryor, who Oakland coach Dennis Allen called upon out of desperation in the last preseason game when it became apparent Flynn could not perform behind a less-than-effective offensive line.

But a man’s health is more important than the result of any game. Saturday night, the Raiders told Flynn he would start. “We didn’t feel good about letting (Pryor) play,” Allen explained. “We were ready to go with him, but the doctors saw him one more time. We felt it wasn’t the right thing to do. ”

Good for the Raiders. Take no chances with concussions. The Raiders’ diligence seemed to have been rewarded, when with fewer than five minutes gone Rashad Jennings blocked a Washington punt and Jeremy Stewart grabbed the ball in the end zone. Not long later, Flynn hit Rivera for another touchdown.

“We were executing,” said Flynn, “doing the things we needed to do. They made some adjustments on defense. After that we just weren’t converting on third downs, and that obviously was the big issue.”

So was the interception, which came in the second quarter with the Raiders in front, 14-3. Flynn fired to Denarius Moore, but David Amerson popped into view — if not Flynn’s view — and after the pick and 45-yard return, it was 14-10.

The Raiders were headed to a 1-3 record. So were the Redskins.

“I thought we had a good play,” Flynn would say later. “They were in man-to-man coverage. We have to clean up the execution of that, all 11 of us.”

It was Flynn who threw the ball.

Flynn didn’t have a great deal of help. Running back Darren McFadden, who’s always getting hurt, pulled a hamstring early on and never returned. Fullback Marcel Reece hurt his knee, also before the half. That meant, with Pryor missing, the entire backfield was substitutes.

“No question,” Flynn said afterward, “those two guys (Reece, McFadden) are the heart and soul of the offense.”

So, we now comprehend, is Terrelle Pryor.

“I don’t think (Flynn) saw the field very well,” said Allen, the coach. “I think he was obviously part of the sacks we gave up in the game. It was a tough situation for him to come into, and obviously with the loss of McFadden and Reece, that didn’t help. Offensively we didn’t get it done, and that’s the bottom line.”

In the fourth quarter, the Raiders gained 28 yards total. In the final three quarters, the Raiders scored zero points total.

“Really it’s about seeing the field,” said Allen when asked about Flynn’s pocket presence, “and what I talk about is seeing coverage and being able to deliver the ball. So some of those sacks are partly on him and partly on protection.”

And about that interception turned into a touchdown?

“We had the momentum in the game,” Allen insisted, “and they were able to snatch it from us a little bit.”

With Matt Flynn, perennial backup as quarterback, the Raiders unfortunately never could snatch it back.

These Raiders may have a future

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — The other team is awful. Really awful. That’s not the Raiders' fault. They’ve been there, been the foil, been the butt of jokes, the zingers by Jay Leno on national TV. There’s no sympathy, no apologies — just, for a few hours, satisfaction.

It’s not the Raiders’ fault the Jacksonville Jaguars are so bad. “We won a football game,” said Dennis Allen, the second-year head coach. “That’s all we can do week in and week out, and play the schedule.”

This week, this coming Sunday, it will be the Denver Broncos, who are the polar opposite of the Jaguars, the team the Raiders on Sunday figured to beat, and because of a defense that has improved and a kicker, Sebastian Janikowski, who doesn’t have to improve, defeated Jacksonville, 19-9.

Ninety percent of America didn’t see the Raiders’ first win of the season. At the same hour, starting at 1:25 p.m. Pacific or 4:25 p.m. Eastern, the Broncos were facing the New York Giants at Met Life Stadium in New Jersey, Peyton Manning against younger brother Eli, the so-called Manning bowl.

CBS-TV is in business to draw viewers. You think anyone wanted to watch the 0-1 Raiders against the 0-1 Jags? Even in Orlando, that was an easy answer, “No,” but by regulations, contractual agreements, Orlando — with the local station begging for forgiveness — showed Jacksonville-Oakland.

Showed the so-called hometown team (140 miles away), which scored only 2 points a week ago and this game had just 3 points until the final 2 minutes 53 seconds. You think Dennis Allen cared? Not a chance.

Allen and the Raiders are a socially acceptable 1-1 for the next few days, which is the same as the Green Bay Packers and better than the Washington Redskins.

Nobody around the O.co Coliseum, where the crowd was announced as 49,400, is complaining about that. Or the competent performance of Oakland quarterback Terrelle Pryor.

“I’m excited and happy we won,” said Allen. “I thought we did some good things.”

One of them was controlling the football, 31 minutes 48 seconds out of 60. Another was holding Jacksonville to 34 yards net rushing, a total to which one can add the footnote, “Hey when you’re in a hole, you’re not climbing out on fullback plunge. You’re throwing.”

More touchdowns would have been acceptable for Oakland, which was limited to one. The man known as Seabass was obligated to end drives with field goals, and he hit on fielders of 46, 30, 29 and 29, while missing a 35-yarder. That’s usually not the way to win football games, unless you’re facing the Jaguars.

The Raiders, behind in last week’s opener at Indianapolis and in all the four preseason games, scored early, if not often against Jax. They were playing downhill, as the cliché goes. They were in front at the virtual start, less than five minutes after kickoff, and they stayed there.

“I thought it was huge,” said Allen, a man of few words, about Oakland scoring on its first possession. “I think our defense going out there and stepping up and forcing a three-and-out on the first series of the game, and then we come back and get the punt return (30 yards by Phillip Adams) that set us up in good position.”

The Raiders got the runs from Darren McFadden they hoped to get when they drafted him fourth overall six seasons ago, bursts that gave him a total of 129 yards on 19 carries, one of those runs good for 30 yards. Too often the man called DMC has been injured, but now he is healthy, and now the Raiders are beneficiaries.

McFadden fumbled — “That’s something that can’t happen,” insisted Allen, after it did happen — yet Allen and everyone else knew McFadden was excellent. So was Pryor, the kid at quarterback who in his second start grew into a man.

He didn’t look like a runner who passes. He was a passer, poised, patient, who can run. The coach said he would have to look at the tape to analyze Pryor’s decision making, but the assessment could be determined from the final score. When a team wins, the quarterback is successful.

“Every snap,” reminded Allen of Pryor, “is a learning experience for him.” As it is for every quarterback, whether, as Pryor, he was chosen in the supplementary draft of August 2011 after leaving (fleeing?) Ohio State following accusations of improper benefits.

The man is great athlete, who was as fine a basketball player in high school as a football player. That he has the skills and leadership qualities is understood.

“I feel like I did my job,” Pryor said after doing his job. He was 15 of 24 passing for 126 yards. He carried 9 times for 50 yards. He very well could be the next Russell Wilson, Colin Kaepernick or RGIII. He very well could be better.

“I got us a W,” he affirmed.

He, McFadden and the defense. Maybe these Raiders have a future.