NO CARR JUST PORTION OF RAIDERS’ PROBLEM
Offense sputters without its star, but defense struggles, too, as Oakland drops third straight
OAKLAND >> Life without Derek Carr wasn’t pleasant.
Even with him, it might not be so enjoyable for the Raiders. They simply aren’t very good right now, whether it be Carr or EJ Manuel under center.
Oakland scored less than 20 points for the third straight game, displaying offensive futility nowhere near what was expected of it before the season. The defense wasn’t any better, proving its stout performance in Denver may have been a fluke after getting shredded against Washington the week before.
All around, the Raiders look nothing like the team that started the year with two impressive wins. Oakland dropped its third straight game, this one a 30-17 loss to the Ravens at the Coliseum on Sunday afternoon.
“Just not playing well,” Raiders coach Jack Del Rio said. “Not playing well enough. Tough loss and not real happy about it.”
The Raiders found themselves in a crater from the start. On the first play from scrimmage, Joe Flacco lofted a 52-yard bomb to Mike Wallace. Tight end Vince Mayle ended the drive with a 2-yard
end-around touchdown run. On the third play of Oakland’s first drive, Jared Cook caught a Manuel pass in the flat. Then he fumbled. And Jimmy Smith returned it 45 yards for a touchdown. Already 14-0, less than four minutes elapsed.
After not trailing in the first two games, the Raiders haven’t led in the past three. They’ve faced deficits of 21-0, 10-0 and 14-0 in three consecutive weeks. On Sunday, they couldn’t pull within closer than a touchdown.
“It’s the nature of the beast,” Manuel said. “I’ve been in every situation you can think of in this league, for the most part, so it wasn’t something to get me rattled or our offense rattled. … There’s no such thing as a 14-point touchdown or anything like that, so you just have to go one touchdown at a time.”
The Raiders got two of those, one on a 41-yard pass from Manuel to Michael Crabtree and another on a 3-yard Marshawn Lynch run. The first cut Baltimore’s lead to 11 in the second quarter; the second trimmed it to seven in the third.
Yet the defense couldn’t get off the field when it needed to, allowing Baltimore to convert on 7-of14 third downs. Oakland entered the game tied for 26th in the league in opponent third-down conversion percentage (45.6). Sunday was even worse.
Manuel wasn’t terrible — he completed 50 percent of his passes for 159 yards and a touchdown without throwing a pick — but it wasn’t nearly enough. But would Carr have made a difference? He hasn’t fared much better of late, playing arguably the worst game of his career in Washington then throwing up a dud in Denver.
After the game, Manuel said Del Rio paused and looked every player in the eye as if to extract the true identity of this struggling team. Del Rio was asked if it was possible his team wasn’t ready before the game, given the 52-yard Wallace catch and Cook fumble right out of the gate. To that, the coach paused, sipped his water and finally answered after about 13 seconds of silence.
“Clearly not what we wanted there,” he said bluntly.
Baltimore didn’t score in the third quarter while Lynch ran for a score, but the Raiders defense couldn’t come up with a timely third-down stop as Flacco found Wallace for 26 yards on third-and-8. The drive ended in a Baltimore field goal that made it a two-possession game. After the ensuing Oakland drive stalled just inside Baltimore territory, Del Rio’s decision to punt drew heavy boos from the crowd. Even worse, Marquette King’s punt sailed into the end zone for a net of only 19 yards.
Key plays
COOK’S FUMBLE >> The tight end couldn’t hold onto Manuel’s short pass on the Raiders’ first drive, and Smith’s touchdown return set the tone early. Oakland gifted Baltimore a second touchdown within the first four minutes, and the Raiders could only pull within seven from there. Cook now has a fumble and two glaring drops in the past five quarters.
“I was just trying to put the ball on my outside arm and the defender came through and swiped it, tackled me at the same time,” Cook said. “That was my fault. Self-inflicted wounds is not something we need on this offense and that definitely was a huge mistake that turned into points for them.”
MANUEL RUNS FOR FIRST DOWN >> Manuel couldn’t find anything through the air late in the third quarter on third-and-9, so he scrambled for 10 yards to the 3-yard line. At the end of the run, he stretched out his right hand for just enough, setting up Lynch’s 3-yard touchdown run on the next play.
Instead of settling for a field goal to make it 2413, Oakland pulled within seven after Lynch found paydirt. It gave the Raiders a glimmer of hope heading into the fourth quarter, but it didn’t matter in the end.
DECISION TO PUNT IN FOURTH QUARTER >> With 8:58 remaining in the game and trailing by 10, the Raiders had the ball at the Ravens’ 44-yard line. It was fourthand-3, and out trotted King to boos. King’s punt sailed into the end zone for a touchback, and a lengthy Ravens drive followed to bury the Raiders for good. As noted by Josh Dubow of The Associated Press, the Raiders are the first team to punt on fourth-and-3 or less down two scores in the fourth quarter in opponent territory since Arizona did in October 2012 against Miami.
“Hindsight is always 2020 on things like that,” Del Rio said. “… A fourth-down call with nine minutes left in the game, 10 minutes left in the game, was that the difference today? I don’t think so.”
Impact players
SEAN SMITH >> Without Gareon Conley (shin) and David Amerson (concussion), Oakland relied heavily on Smith at cornerback. That was unfortunate for the Raiders. Smith allowed the 52-yard Flacco-to-Wallace connection on the first play from scrimmage down the left sideline that set up a Baltimore touchdown.
“We gave up a deep ball the first play of the game,” safety Karl Joseph said. “We can’t do that.”
Later in the first half, Wallace blazed by Smith again for a 54-yard catch that set up a Ravens’ field goal.
Then in the fourth quarter with the Ravens facing a third down, Smith allowed a first-down reception to Jeremy Maclin. Smith has been shaky all season and continued to be so against a team that hadn’t generated much of anything on offense before Sunday’s game started.
MIKE WALLACE >> On top of two catches surpassing 100 total yards against Smith, Wallace reeled in a clutch 26-yard reception on thirdand-8 late in the third quarter to keep the drive alive. It was a chance for Oakland to force a punt the drive after Lynch’s touchdown, but Wallace streaked across to field to haul in Flacco’s pass ahead of Reggie Nelson before being pushed out of bounds.