Answers few and far between after Raiders’ collapse against Cardinals
In the eerie quiet of the Raiders’ locker room, where anger and frustration were palpable and answers nowhere to be found, making sense of an inexplicable 29-23 overtime loss to the Cardinals on Sunday became secondary.
An even bigger issue faces the winless Raiders, one that supersedes a painful defeat that everybody at Allegiant Stadium assumed on multiple occasions had already been put under lock and key in the win column.
And it will require all the wherewithal the 0-2 Raiders can muster.
The challenge facing the franchise is to process the misery that unfolded Sunday in a way that extracts and buries it. With time of the essence and the odds stacked against them relative to teams surviving two straight losses to start a season, the Raiders have to hit the bounce-back button in a hurry.
“I feel like that just really depends on the leaders of this team,” running back Josh Jacobs said. “How we come to work tomorrow. How we prepare this week. I think that will set the tone for the locker room.”
It will be difficult, to be sure.
How do the Raiders mentally deal with losing a game for which they had complete control while leading 20-0 at halftime and 23-7 with just over eight minutes remaining? How do they digest the two touchdowns they surrendered over the last eight minutes? Or the four fourth-down conversions they coughed up — one of which occurred on a holding call — and the two 2-point conversions they allowed?
“Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever been a part of something exactly like that,” Raiders cornerback Nate Hobbs said.
How do they wrap their arms around, and then push away, the fact they were driving into winning field goal range in overtime, only for the normally sure-handed wide receiver Hunter Renfrow to fumble while fighting for extra yards, and then have the ball be scooped up and returned for 59 yards for the game-clinching touchdown by Cardinals cornerback Byron Murphy?
“It’s football, so anything is possible,” tackle Jermaine Eluemunor said. Yet he couldn’t come up with a comp for what he had just witnessed. “Nah. Not the way that happened,” he said.
Or the 10 penalties they committed for 68 yards. Or how the offense vanished in the second half. The Raiders had 15 first downs to the Cardinals’ five over the first two quarters. They outgained them 253 yards to 86. Only to pull an about-face in the third and fourth quarters by being outgained 327-71 and outscored 29-3.
“We did not execute each play with the detail that I think we should have, the way that we did in the first half,” said quarterback Derek Carr, whose tale of two halves mirrored the team’s dual-faced afternoon. Carr threw for 251 yards and two touchdowns, but only 41 yards came after intermission.
Figuring out why or how that could happen was a nearly impossible task.
“I feel like that’s above my head,” said Jacobs, who ran for 69 yards on 19 carries. “It ain’t really my call to make.”
Or, as tight end Foster Moreau put it upon being asked if he could put his finger on the problem: “Honestly, no. Especially not seeing the film. To be honest with you, it wouldn’t really be my place. My job’s my job, right? I’m sorry. It sounds like a B.S. answer but … it’s just the truth.”
Trying to find answers to almost unanswerable questions seems pointless anyway. The key will be in the Raiders’ response. And with a trip to Tennessee beckoning, it is vital they push forward as best and as quickly as possible.
“We have to learn how to win,” Carr said. “It starts with me. It always will.”
Said Jacobs: “We gotta work on finishing.” That’s across the board, Jacobs insisted.
“From the top down,” he said. “The way we practice. The way we prepare.”
That is the hope, anyway. Anything less, be it by letting the loss hover or not learning from it, could be catastrophic.
“You have to have a short-term memory,” Eluemunor said. “You can be pissed about today, but as soon as you wake up tomorrow, it’s a brand new day, a brand new week and a brand new game week. If you let that linger into the next week, or one more week, by the time you look up you could be 0-4. So be mad about today. Tomorrow, wake up, and it’s on to Tennessee.”
Contact Vincent Bonsignore at vbonsignore@reviewjournal.com. Follow @VinnyBonsignore on Twitter.
