For Niners, another opening — another backpack question

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By Art Spander

MIAMI — Of course there was a question about the backpack. But by Deion Sanders.

Who better to exploit the silliness and salesmanship of the Super Bowl’s media function — relabled Opening Night — than a man who played in the game and now works for the NFL Network, Deion Sanders, old Prime Time himself?

Either Deion has been out of touch or the guys behind the telecast goaded him into asking Kyle Shanahan about the incident, but there was Deion standing next to Shanahan. Network types get individual access, which ordinary journalists do not.

So there is Sanders, who helped the 49ers win Super Bowl XXIX, right where No. LIV will be played Sunday — it’s now called Hard Rock Stadium, formerly Joe Robbie Stadium.

Let’s just say Deion was more impressive with a football in his hands than a microphone. But that doesn’t seem to matter.

Opening Night (sounds like an opera, not a media show) on Monday was at Marlins Park, the baseball stadium, appropriate perhaps because the one that was held three years ago, prior to Super Bowl LI, was at Minute Maid Park, where the Astros play home games.

Shanahan was offensive coordinator for the Atlanta Falcons, who would blow a big lead and lose to New England. But more significantly everyone knew he was about to be named the Niners' new coach.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one, but I came late, put down my backpack with my laptop and joined the group around Shanahan. Then, I picked up my backpack and went to write. Only, when someone tracked me down, it wasn’t my backpack, it was Shanahan’s.

Hey, it was dark and both packs were green. Both of us ended up with the proper backpacks. We’re three years on. But Shanahan has returned to a Super Bowl.

After Shanahan on Monday night tells Sanders there will be a different approach to this Super Bowl than the one three years ago, Deion casually mentions the backpack.

“I was pretty upset,” said Shanahan. “One minute I have it, the next minute it’s gone.” He wasn’t worried about the Patriots learning his game plan — “That was on an iPad and could be deleted” — but about the $15,000 in tickets he had acquired an hour earlier.

I never opened the pack. But I opened a wound. The story became huge. It’s still large. When half-jokingly a week ago, I asked Shanahan if for nostalgia’s sake he would bring the backpack to this Super Bowl, he said, “If I do, I’m going to keep it locked up to my arm so you can’t get it.”

Sanders, as if he had been on the moon, asked, “Wasn’t there an incident with a backpack? “

“Someone picked it up,” said the coach, cleverly using no names.

The issue now is not the backpack but quarterbacks and running backs. Can the Niners move the ball with the effectiveness they did against Green Bay in the NFC Championship game? San Francisco did it almost entirely on the ground.

Pack that up.

Niners get to where they used to be — the Super Bowl

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SANTA CLARA,Calif. — And so they are back, if not to the top of the mountain, then at least close enough, to once more be a part of the NFL elite, a team and a franchise that, through reputation and resilience, is nothing less than a champion.

The journey for the 49ers was at times confusing and at other times disappointing as they lost games and, a few years ago, seemingly lost their way.

But a young quarterback, a young coach and a relatively young general manager helped restore the greatness.

They remain one brick short of a load, another Super Bowl victory to go with the five wins that made them the team of the '80s. The opportunity for that was achieved Sunday in the NFC Championship game at Levi’s Stadium, where a boisterous crowd made it a home field in more than just name. The Niners, aggressive, obsessive, overwhelming, built up a 27-0 halftime lead and whipped the Green Bay Packers, 37-20.

They still have one more step to go, and a tough one it will be against a Chiefs team that stomped the Tennessee Titans, 35-24, in the AFC title game. Yet considering how the Niners got to where they are, logic and forecasts are best ignored.

Everything was going south until Kyle Shanahan was hired from Atlanta to be head coach and John Lynch, a onetime All-Pro defensive back left broadcasting to join him as GM. Then the Niners traded for Jimmy Garoppolo, who was backing up Tom Brady with the Patriots.

In 2017, the first year of the new regime, the Niners lost their first nine games. In 2018 they were 4-12, when in the third game Garoppolo was lost for the season with an injury.

But in 2019, with the QB returning, with a rookie defensive end named Nick Bosa and with a determination to play knock-'em-down football, the Niners turned back the clock and now boast a 15-3 record for the season.

If there’s one person who would seem to represent the 49ers perserverance, it is running back Raheem Mostert. He was not drafted, then from 2015 to 2016 was with five different teams.

On Sunday, needing to replace the ailing Tevin Coleman, he set an NFL record by becoming the first player ever to rush for at least 200 yards (he had 220) and score four touchdowns in a playoff game.

“I never gave up,” said Mostert, who grew up in Florida — where Super Bowl LIV will be held on February 2 — and then went north to play at Purdue. In the pros, he bounced between the Dolphins, Ravens, Browns, Jets and Bears in a year and a half.  

Then, fortunately for both, came the 49ers.

“It’s hard to believe after all this I’m not only going to the Super Bowl," Mostert said, “but it is in my home state.”

The Niners, as they did in the divisional win over Minnesota, just kept running the ball. They had 42 rushes compared to only eight passes. Stone Age football, perhaps, but obviously successful football.

Said Niners receiver Debo Samuels of Mostert, “Man, it was crazy. It seemed like every run that he did, he was about to score. I was just out there going crazy.”

While Mostert, who carried 29 times and averaged 7.6 yards a run, was going wild.                                                                                                      

”I did have a lot of doubters and naysayers,” said Mostert. “But this is surreal. I can’t believe I’m in the position I’m in and did the things I did tonight. The journey’s been crazy.”

For Shanahan, it’s been the result of hard work. “These guys are a bunch of fighters,” he said of his team’s intensity.

Then, considering Mostert, he could have added, “and runners.”

Shanahan, the fan, knows how uplifting a win can be

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By Art Spander

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — It was a television reporter who asked Kyle Shanahan, the 49ers coach, the question nobody who regularly covers the team would have asked, to wit:

Did Shanahan get a sense of regional uplifting that a win such as the one over the Vikings can do for the Bay Area?

There are football people who would have dismissed the idea out of hand, telling us their job is about what happens on the field, not in the stands. But that’s not Shanahan.

“That stuff does it for me too,” Shanahan said Monday at Niners headquarters, responding to the question. “Not just as a coach, but as a fan. I love sport.

“When I watched the Warriors do good here for the two years I was here prior to this year, that uplifts me, and I love what sports does for people.”

What the 49ers have done this season is call down some recent echoes. They are in the NFC Championship game Sunday night against Green Bay at Levi’s Stadium. Suddenly, it’s the 1980s once again.

This isn’t Charlotte where, when a major golf tournament, the PGA Championship, was played there, a local reporter asked the golfers what they thought of the city. Not the course, the city, the restaurants, the stores.

We know what people think of San Francisco, of Oakland, of San Jose. Who cares if the Niners play in Santa Clara? Not TV, which during games offers shots of the Bay Bridge, when it isn’t showing us the Golden Gate.

Kyle Shanahan has been around and part of winners: offensive coordinator on the Falcons, who went to the Super Bowl three years ago; an intern with his dad’s Broncos, Super Bowl champions in 1997 and 1998.

“Anytime you have a team that has a chance to be in the situation we’re in,” Kyle Shanahan said, “where the Warriors have been a lot, sports are great. It gives everyone a break from stuff. You always want to support your home team, and I’m glad we’re giving something to be proud of this year.”

True, Northern Cal has had its share of titles, every pro team other than the Sharks taking a championship. When the Niners finally won, in the 1981 season, it was, dare we use the word, a virtual earthquake — the team that was here first, after seasons of disappointment, coming in first last.

The Bay Area, California, the entire west, had only college sports and minor league baseball until 1946. Then the Cleveland Rams moved to Los Angeles. Then the 49ers were formed in San Francisco.

No Giants until 1958. No Raiders until 1960. No Warriors until 1962. No A’s until 1968. No Sharks until 1991 (although the California Golden Seals were around from 1967-76).

The Niners were the original, the attraction and, for 35 years without any sort of playoff win, eternal frustration. So when Dwight Clark made “The Catch” in January 1982 against Dallas (after a divisional victory over the New York Giants), the elation was understandable. And, for a long while, unstoppable.

Bill Walsh was the coach who broke the spell. “You can stop writing we can’t win the big one,” he told me maybe an hour after Clark’s catch. Since then, there have been numerous big ones.

Another is Sunday. Will this be a return to greatness, to the Super Bowl, a game that in the 1980s and early ‘90s almost seemed part of the Niners’ regular schedule? Or will this be only a letdown?

In the glory years, the Niners won their championships while playing at deteriorating Candlestick Park — then-owner Eddie DeBartolo called the stadium “a dump.” But it was full and loud. But now the home games, as this coming Sunday's game will be, are at Levi’s, which was mostly empty and very quiet. Until last weekend.

“The fan noise,” said Shanahan of the last game, “is as big of a difference as probably our team is. They’ve gotten a lot louder as we’ve gotten better. It was just unbelievable Saturday.

“All I saw in the stands were red jerseys. It gave us a special feeling.”   

Just as winning teams invariably give their communities.

 

 

 

 

 

Niners running toward the Super Bowl

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By Art Spander

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — This was back in the 1980s, when another 49ers team of another era — a very good one at that — hit the road and got hit, 17-3, in a playoff game by the New York Giants.

The Niners were unable to move the ball against the defense and the weather.

That was when the New York coach, Bill Parcells, sneered at the system of Niners coach Bill Walsh, giving it a name, contending in so many words, “Back here when it gets cold and windy, that West Coast offense doesn’t work. You’ve got to be able to run the ball.”

It doesn’t really matter what the conditions are. A team always needs to run the ball. Maybe not as emphatically as the Niners, the 2020 Niners, did Saturday, defeating the Minnesota Vikings, 27-10, in their NFC Divisional playoff win, but run frequently and consistently.

For all the talk about how the NFL has morphed into a passing league, the run remains the essence of football. You take the ball and virtually shove it through the other team. Then do it again. And again, building your momentum and wearing down the opposition.

Never mind balance, this is battering. The Niners ran the ball 47 times. In one third-quarter-sequence, they ran it eight plays in a row and scored.

It was football out of the 50s, the old Woody Hayes game at Ohio State, three yards and a cloud of dust. It was boring. It was beautiful. It was successful.

It also helped keep the ball from the Vikings; the time of possession was a highly disproportionate 38 minutes and 27 seconds for the Niners compared to 21 minutes and 33 seconds for Minnesota.

“I think 47 rushes is pretty good, right?” was Niners tight end George Kittle’s assessment. “I personally feel we don’t run the ball enough every single week.”

They’ll have another chance Sunday in the NFC Championship game against either Seattle or Green Bay, each of which the 14-3 Niners defeated during the regular season.

San Francisco was the No. 1 NFC seed in the postseason, so it didn’t have to be cute — why take chances when you’re favored? — only dominant.

“We’ve been playing good football all year,” said Kittle. “People keep telling us we’re not very good.”

What they can say now is the Niners are one game away from the Super Bowl.

And one reason is the young quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo, who obviously passed infrequently (the Niners throwing a mere 19 times, completing 11 for 131 yards).

But on this afternoon when Levi’s Stadium hosted its first postseason game, and when the seats at last were packed with fans, many chanting “Defense, defense,” Garoppolo showed a skill unknown for many quarterbacks.

On one of the 47 runs, a run by Debo Samuel, Garoppolo was a blocker.

“I saw an opportunity,” said Garoppolo. “He was a little off balance. Had to get a pancake.” That’s the term for flattening a potential tackler.

On the other side, Niners cornerback Richard Sherman figuratively flattened all Vikings hopes with an interception, which led to the repetitive runs that resulted in the third-period touchdown.

“It’s that complementary football,” said Garoppolo, linking the defense to the offense and the offense to the defense.

And having the crowd linked to everything. It’s been a while since the Niners created so much excitement in Northern California. Since the last Super Bowl victory, the Warriors became the best team in the NBA and the Giants won three World Series. Now we've got the Niners renaissance.

“I was pumped up with the defense,” said Niners coach Kyle Shanahan, who then spoke of the offense.

“We had a pre-game goal,” said Shanahan. “We thought the team that got over 30 runs would win this game.”

It did, easily.

“We knew coming into the season we had a chance to compete in every game,” said Shanahan. “Now I can’t wait to watch these games Sunday to find out who we’re playing.”

Wisconsin couldn’t overcome itself or Justin Herbert

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By Art Spander

PASADENA, Calif. — He didn’t even make the top 10 in the Heisman Trophy voting, a comedown for Justin Herbert after a cover story in Sports Illustrated. The other guys — the winner, Joe Burrow of LSU, and Jalen Hurts of Oklahoma — had more yards and more attention.

The NFL scouts remained high on Herbert, however. He could throw the ball, which was expected of a top quarterback. And as he proved once more, on a beautiful blue-sky New Year’s Day in the 106th Rose Bowl game, he also could run with it.

Herbert rushed for three touchdowns, the most by a quarterback in a Rose Bowl in 13 years, and carried the University of Oregon to a 28-27 win over Wisconsin — which gave Herbert and Oregon the opportunity by losing three fumbles and throwing an interception.

“We didn’t overcome ourselves,” a downhearted Paul Chryst, the Wisconsin coach, said of the four turnovers.

But Herbert, a 6-foot-6, 235-pound senior who grew up near the Oregon campus in Eugene, overcame his failures and disappointment against Arizona State — a loss that knocked the Ducks out of the chance to play for the national championship but in a way may have been advantageous.

Oregon instead of Oklahoma would have faced LSU in one of the semifinals last weekend. The Sooners were battered, 63-20. Instead, Oregon goes to the Rose Bowl the first day of 2020, gets a thrilling victory on Herbert’s 30-yard run in the fourth quarter and may get a spot as high as No. 5 in the final rankings.

Wisconsin, which appeared to have the majority of the usual sellout crowd of 90,462 on its side — if you lived in the Midwest, wouldn’t you head for California in winter? — also for a long, long while seemed to have the game.

There was a six-play sequence in the first quarter that included a 95-yard touchdown kickoff return by Wisconsin’s Aron Cruickshank, a Herbert interception and another Badger TD, which gave Wisconsin a 10-7 lead.

And Oregon was virtually offensive on offense, their combined passing and running yards total of 204 was the fewest in a Rose Bowl game in 41 years.

But you can’t keep giving the other team the ball. Eventually, you give it the game.

“We would have liked to finish it differently,” said Chryst. Wisconsin finished it, the season, 10-4, Oregon 12-2.

Not surprisingly, Oregon coach Mario Cristobal called Herbert the best college quarterback in the land.

“He can beat you in so many ways,” said Cristobal after a game in which Herbert basically beat the Badgers on the ground, running four yards for a TD in the first quarter, five for one in the second and then the big 30-yarder with 7:41 left in the game.

“You see the legs,” said Cristobal, “you see the arms. But what you don’t see is the leadership and the heart.  And in the end, that was the biggest difference, in my opinion.”

Herbert said of his winning TD dash, “It’s a rare opportunity. It’s something I haven’t experienced very often. But it was great.”

Oregon wasn’t great, but it was effective. The school’s athletic program (Nike U?) is on a roll. The basketball team, No. 5 in the rankings, very well could be better than the football team.

“We go hard now,” said Cristobal, an implication that the team was soft the previous year. “What we do is not kind and cuddly, and it’s certainly not for everybody. We stuck to a blueprint that is as demanding as it gets.”

A blueprint and a quarterback who runs and, most importantly, wins.

Niners defy third-and-16 percentage — and win

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By Art Spander

SANTA CLARA, Calif. — Third and 16. That’s not field position, that’s an impossibility. Especially on your own 19 with just under two minutes left in a tie game.

“They’re less than 10 percent,” Kyle Shanahan, the 49ers coach, said of going for it on third and 16. “I know that. In the league this year, you watch and it’s like one out of 20.

“Usually you just try and survive the down and get half (the yardage) and punt. But we were in a situation that we didn’t have that, and I think we struggled on third downs most of the day.”

This time Shanahan didn’t play the percentages, he played the opposition. He played to get the victory and what might be looming, a top seed in the playoffs.

According to one numbers man, Josh Dubow of the Associated Press, the 49ers had failed the previous 15 times trying to convert on third and 16.

So naturally in this suspenseful and magical season of 2019, they made it, kept the ball on an 18-yard completion to Kendrick Bourne and kept alive a drive that ended with 0:00 on the clock at Levi’s Stadium, Saturday night.

Another one of those waiting-to-exhale results, beating the Los Angeles Rams 34-31 on Robbie Gould’s 33-yard field goal.

Such an emotional and tragic day, the Niners receiving word around 3 a.m. that the younger brother of backup quarterback C.J. Beathard had been fatally stabbed in a bar fight in Nashville. Players were notified before the game. That the Niners quickly fell behind was no surprise.

“How horrible it is,” said Shanahan.

That the Niners, trailing 14-3 in the second quarter, rallied to win and raise their season record to 12-3 wasn’t a surprise either.

The Niners are what teams must be in pro football: resilient. First the awful news about a teammate’s sibling; then the Rams, desperate because a defeat would eliminate them from the playoffs, striking quickly; then Niners quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo getting sacked six times; then the Rams regaining the lead, 28-24, in the third quarter.

But winners have something special. Back in Foxboro, Brady brought the Patriots from behind to take the AFC title for a 11th straight year. Then a few hours later out here on the other coast, Garoppolo, who was the Patriots starter-in-waiting behind Brady — and if the Niners hadn’t traded for him he still would be waiting — brought San Francisco from behind.

Next Sunday the Niners face the Seahawks in Seattle, the winner getting home field advantage and the first-round playoff bye.

Which is a perfect place to mention Richard Sherman, the defensive back who as part of the “Legion of Boom” helped the Seahawks win their only Super Bowl and now would hope to help the Niners win their sixth.

“This is a special team,” Sherman said of the 49ers. “Guys care about each other. Guys care about winning. Guys go out there and execute... It’s not always how you draw it up but if you got guys willing to fight to the last play.”

Four Niners games this season have come down to that last play, and the Niners have won two of them and, of course, lost the other two.

They won this one in part because at halftime San Francisco made changes in its defense. Set up to stop the run, mainly Todd Gurley II, it gave up yards and touchdowns on passes by Jared Goff, the onetime Cal star who was the No. 1 pick three years ago.

Goff got the Rams to the Super Bowl last season. Garoppolo might be able to get the Niners there this year.

“Usually,” said Shanahan about his quarterback, “you’re not feeling great in those (third and very long) situations. He had two this game. Play calling, offense defense, everything was up and down this game. But each individual kept coming back.”

Raiders' home finale: A loss on the board, boos in the stands

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By Art Spander

OAKLAND — So it is over now. The Raiders are done in Oakland. Finished. They walked off the Coliseum field Sunday with a defeat on the scoreboard and booing in the stands.

We’re told that love never ends happily, and certainly the affair between the city and the team it held so dear is yet another example.

A last dance, a time to mourn as much as to celebrate, a day the music — the soul beat and the salsa that flood the pregame tailgates — died. There will be silence in the parking lots in Oakland before future Raider home games.

The team is moving. To Nevada, to become the Las Vegas Raiders, shifting away from the aging, weathered half-century-old Coliseum to a $2 billion stadium in a city that may not care about pro football but has the wherewithal to grab a team from a town that cares too much.

Maybe it was appropriate on a bittersweet afternoon that the Raiders would allow two touchdowns in the last 5 minutes 15 seconds to the sad-sack Jacksonville Jaguars and lose 20-16.

Or maybe the game meant little. Other than it was a last hurrah, another kick in the gut, one more reminder that the sports we watch and support and agonize over, in fact, belong to the wealthy.

To those who are willing and able to build expensive palaces for their teams, the new Vegas stadium, the under-construction $5 billion stadium down in Inglewood, or to pay Gerrit Cole $324 million to pitch for the Yankees.

Yes, it’s history, irreversible. Owners get the arenas and stadiums they demand. Fans get the shaft — and some weak apologies.

You want the football? The Raiders couldn’t find a way to hold a 13-point second-quarter lead. For a second straight game, the Raiders couldn’t score in the second half. The Raiders dropped to 6-8 and out of playoff contention.

That’s the way this era ends, with neither a bang or a whimper but a lot of could-haves and should-haves.

“I’d like to say we could have sent the Raider fans off with a lot better finish than that,” agreed head coach Jon Gruden. “I think importantly, before we talk about the game, I’d like to thank the fans. I’d like to thank city of Oakland for supporting the Raiders and being faithful in all kinds of seasons. I’ll miss them.”

It’s not Gruden’s fault the Raiders are getting the heck out of town. He coached them 20 years ago, was traded — for draft picks, no less — to Tampa Bay by the late Oakland owner Al Davis, went to work for ESPN and then a year ago returned to the Raiders.

You believe he’s genuinely understanding and compassionate about what is known as Raider Nation. He’s been seen to plunge into that most aggressive and loyal group, the Black Hole, exchanging handshakes and joy.

Not Sunday, of course. The fans were angry and vocal, the immediate disgust with the result — losing the game — coupled with the residual frustration of losing the franchise.

“It’s not really the result today,” Gruden said, trying to deal with the big picture, “it’s the results of the Raiders over the years. It’s the Oakland Raiders. It’s the appreciation, the loyalty that these fans have had for the Raiders, We’re going to miss them.”

Hey Jon, we know you’re not to blame, but it’s the Raiders who are hitting the road, not those loyal fans.

Raiders management did its best to put a happy face on an unhappy occasion, bringing back many of the heroes of old — Jim Otto read a line from “Autumn Wind,” the team’s manifesto; Tim Brown ignited the memorial flame to Al Davis.

A ton of nostalgia, a spate of memories, and the undeniable fact that the team that put Oakland into the datelines, if not on the map, is being taken away.

Raiders quarterback Derek Carr (he was 22 of 36 for 267 yards, 1 TD, sacked 4 times) went over to the Black Hole before heading to the locker room.

“I saw a couple of people, a little kid, I’ve seen over the years,” said Carr. “I just said thanks. When I’m done playing, they can get mad as somebody else. That’s the quarterback. You know what I mean?

“There are too many fun memories I’ve had with especially those certain people. It’s our last time there. Such a cool moment to say thank you.”

Why don’t we let it go at that?

Raiders did what they could; Chiefs did what was needed

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By Art Spander
For Maven Sports

OAKLAND — That was the real world, the NFL. That was the team that came within an overtime loss of reaching the Super Bowl, the Kansas City Chiefs. That was the quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, who was the NFL offensive player of the year.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2019, The Maven 

Gruden takes a stand for missing Antonio Brown

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By Art Spander

OAKLAND, Calif. — Yes, Antonio Brown was listed as a starting wide receiver on the lineup card for the Raiders' opening preseason game Saturday night. No, he didn’t start. He didn’t play. He wasn’t even at the Coliseum.   

But these are the Raiders, for one last bittersweet season the Oakland Raiders, so issues and controversy never are far away — although when the team moves next season to Las Vegas, it will be plenty far away.

Yet that’s the future. Maybe so is Brown, the guy who wanted to be free of the Pittsburgh Steelers and came in trade during the off-season to the Raiders.

He brings a great ability to catch touchdown passes and, with his style (injuring his feet in a cryogenic chamber) and stubbornness (refusing to use the new helmet ordered by the NFL), a special independence.

After the Raiders' 14-3 win over the Los Angeles Rams in a quite normal first game of any season, especially one that doesn’t count except for the players trying to make the team, second-year coach Jon Gruden took a stand for Brown — hardly a surprise because he was very much in favor of the move to acquire him.

“I support this guy,” Gruden said of Brown. “I don’t care what anybody thinks. The foot injury wasn’t his fault.”

The story is Brown went to Europe for cryogenic treatment, in which a part of the body is subjected to temperatures far below zero for a short amount of time. But Brown wore flip-flops on his feet instead of shoes and incurred frostbite.

“It was a total accident,” Gruden explained. “A serious injury. People are smirking at it. He’s hurt. He hasn’t done anything wrong. And the helmet thing is a personal matter.”

Brown, 31, has worn the same type of helmet for 10 years and reportedly wants to continue, even threatening to quit instead of changing to a newer model endorsed by the league.

He had a two-hour conference call with an independent arbitrator Friday to point out why, according to ESPN, he should be allowed to keep the original helmet. Brown said the new helmet restricted his vision, and according to ESPN's Adam Schefter, he has filed a grievance with the league.

“It’s a personal matter,” said Gruden. “He has a strong feeling what he should wear on his head, and we support him. We understand the league’s position as well, so we’re in a tough spot.

“We hope he’ll be back here soon, because he’s exciting to be around. He’s one of the premier competitors I’ve ever been around.”

Before Gruden returned to coach in 2018, he was the analyst on ESPN’s Monday Night Football, studying players from every team.   

“He loves to play so much,” Gruden said, exaggerating a trifle, “he’d play with no helmet. Whatever his decision, we’ll stand by it. We have confidence he’s going to be a huge factor for the Raiders in years to come.”                                                    

The factors for either team Saturday, in what amounted to an exhibition game, were not those that would be apparent in September, when the regular season gets underway. Neither Jared Goff, who led the Rams to the Super Bowl, or the Raiders’ Derek Carr played a single down at quarterback.

Mike Glennon, who started, and Nathan Peterman were the Raiders' quarterbacks, Glennon completing 17 of 25 for 200 yards and Peterman 9 of 12 for 66 yards and a touchdown. Peterman also had Oakland’s longest run when he scrambled for 50 yards.

“I though both quarterbacks in their opening possessions had beautiful touchdown drives,” said Gruden. ‘That’s what we want. We want quarterbacks to take control of the game and get us on schedule. You take the opening drive 80 yards and score.

“Credit to both those guys. Mike had two interceptions. The one in the red zone can’t happen. He got fooled on the other one. I thought Glennon did some good things in the pocket. Nathan showed his athleticism. He can run. As he continues to gain command, he’s going to be interesting to watch.”

So, presumably, will Antonio Brown, if he ever gets on the field.

Super Bowl QBs: Two guys from near the dock of the Bay

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By Art Spander
For Maven Sports

ATLANTA — They came from the suburbs of the Bay Area, growing up 50 miles and almost a generation apart, the new kid on the block and the onetime kid who has knocked off everyone’s block, Jared Goff and Tom Brady.

Read the full story here.

Copyright 2019, The Maven