In hauntingly familiar scenario, Lynch does not get call on 1-yard line as Carr throws pick
CARSON >> Marshawn Lynch barely restrained himself from going full Beast Mode, and not in a way the Raiders want.
Lynch ripped off his helmet while still on the field, held it in his right hand and cocked back. Before Lynch unleashed a helmet hurl on his own sideline, he gripped it tight, held it close to his mouth and instead imitated a basketball jump shot with the helmet rather than unleashing his frustration.
Lynch is all too familiar with what had just transpired, his team on the 1-yard line, trailing, with one of the game’s best short-yardage backs ready to plow through for a touchdown. Of course this time his head coach’s decision to bypass Beast Mode didn’t come on the sport’s biggest stage in the Super
Bowl, but Sunday’s gaffe was a costly one, nonetheless.
The Raiders trailed, 20-3, and had a 1st-and-goal from the 1-yard line with just over a minute left in the third quarter. Twice this season with the ball on the doorstep, the Raiders fed Lynch, who leaped over the pile for a score. Twice when they haven’t, fullback Keith Smith was stuffed on 4th-and-1 against the Broncos in an eventual one-point Raiders loss and now this, a Derek Carr fake handoff and game-sealing interception in the end zone.
If the Raiders had scored, they would’ve been alive. Just look at the
21-point fourth quarter they posted last week against the Browns. Instead, the ball fell right to Chargers defensive end Melvin Ingram, and Lynch erupted enough to show how frustrated he really was. The Raiders’ faint chance at another comeback officially dashed, Jon Gruden and Co. fell to 1-4 after a 26-10 loss to the Chargers as they remained in the AFC West cellar.
“We haven’t thrown the ball in a goalto-go situation all year. It was 1st-and-goal. The decision there is to throw it, and if it’s not open, you throw it away,” Gruden said. “It just didn’t work out. We expected to have a wide-open receiver on the play, and obviously that’ll be second-guessed, and rightfully so. But shouldn’t have made that throw down there and I’ll live to hand the ball off on the next play, possibly.”
Lynch’s outspoken mother, Delisa, expressed her disapproval shortly after the interception in a since-deleted tweet. She also tweeted, then deleted, that she wouldn’t be flying to London for the Raiders’ game against the Seahawks next Sunday.
Both of Lynch’s agents, Doug Hendrickson and CJ LaBoy, opposed Gruden’s decision in tweets. Hendrickson tweeted a simple “Unreal,” while LaBoy chimed in with “You have the greatest and most ferocious/feared short yardage back of all time ... and you don’t give him the ball at the goal line?”
The very next play from scrimmage after Carr’s interception, Philip Rivers hit Tyrell Williams down the left sideline for a 48-yard gain over Gareon Conley. Later in the drive, Rivers found tight end Virgil Green for a 13-yard touchdown, extending the Chargers lead to 26-3 and giving the Raiders flashbacks to last season’s blowout loss here at StubHub Center.
After that 30-10 Chargers win, Raiders owner Mark Davis fired Jack Del Rio
in the bowels of the stadium with three years left on his contract. Gruden still has a job, but his tone at the same podium Del Rio announced his own firing at on New Year’s Eve 2017 was eerily similar. Both lamented lost chances, left wondering what could have been.
“He’s just trying so hard,” Gruden said of his starting quarterback. “The call was to hand the ball to Lynch there because of what happened. First-and-goal at the 1, faking to Lynch has been a great call for a lot of years. I think he just presses at some moments and he knows we have to do a lot with the ball when we have it. I think that’s what happened today.”
Carr’s throw wasn’t even close to a white uniform.
“They did a good job covering the first two guys. Derek Carrier popped late and beat his guy,” Carr said. “I saw that he beat his guy and by the time I threw it, Melvin Ingram, who had been on the run, made a great play. I wasn’t trying to force it. I saw our guy win and I was trying to throw it in the back line to him, but they made a play and that was the one.”
Sunday was the third time this season Carr has thrown an interception in the end zone.
The first came against the Rams when he targeted Jared Cook on a second-down lob down the right sideline with the Raiders up 10-7 in the second quarter. The second was a first-down fade to the back-left corner for Martavis Bryant against the Dolphins with the Raiders trailing by four and under three minutes left in the game. The third came Sunday, Carr’s league-leading eighth interception.
“It obviously makes a huge difference,” wide receiver Jordy Nelson said of the interception squashing Oakland’s chances. “When we go down there and come away with zero points ... (Carr) is just trying to make a play. He’s made some big plays before. He’s trying to do it again.”
Gruden made the lighthearted comment that he’ll live to feed Lynch next time on the doorstep.