Ann Killion:
Raiders head coach Jack Del Rio continues to say his team is “close,” but it’s 4-6 and continues to play errorprone games.
What is a more uncomfortable experience? Rewatching Tom Brady vivisect your football team? Or triangulating a twitter feud between your running back, your wife and the president of the United States?
Lucky Jack Del Rio got to do both Monday. And though his afternoon news conference was more crowded than usual because of the latter matter — President Trump went after Marshawn Lynch on Twitter and Linda Del Rio responded angrily — the head coach said he’d rather concentrate on football. That isn’t very pleasant, either. The Raiders laid yet another stink bomb Sunday, this one in Mexico City. This was the onion of bad games, with many layers of unhappiness. First was the mere fact of the game: Owner Mark Davis gave up a home game against a premier team to go on the road, in a stadium filled with New England fans. It’s just a harbinger of what the Raiders’ future in Las Vegas will look like: giving up the home-field advantage of the Black Hole to play an endless succession of neutral-site games.
Second was the location in Mexico City. Del Rio admitted that the altitude impacted his players, especially the young ones who hadn’t experienced it before. But he stuck by his decision to go to Mexico City the night before, saying he wouldn’t do anything different to get
acclimated (insanity, in my recently-in-Quito opinion, considering that even very fit people have trouble climbing stairs at such an altitude until they’ve had a couple of days to adjust).
The third layer of unhappiness was the game itself. This probably was going to be a loss because the Patriots are the league’s best franchise. But to come out so flat-footed, after a bye week, and to let Brady eviscerate you from the start, was embarrassing.
Del Rio continues to say his team is “close” but the NFL season is 11 weeks old and close at this stage doesn’t cut it. Del Rio seemed slightly in denial about Sunday’s shortcomings (and even more defensive later on his 95.7 radio show), saying that two plays made all the difference. The plays in question were an Oakland holding penalty on third down that gave the Patriots a first down on their first touchdown drive — “That was highly questionable in my opinion,” Del Rio said — and Seth Roberts’ fumble inside the Pats’ 5, which created a 10-point swing in the Patriots’ favor.
Yes, those were significant plays — but they were just two plays out of 129. The Raiders did not seem to play with the urgency one would expect from a team that has its season hanging in the balance.
And that brings us to the bitter core of the unhappy issue: The Raiders are 4-6. They have little, maybe even no, margin for error. And yet, their games continue to be full of errors.
Two weeks ago, Del Rio said that he thought that his team needed to go 10-6 to assure itself of a playoff berth. Historically, that’s on target. But right now, the AFC is underwhelming and a team could sneak into the wild card at 9-7 or even 8-8. The Raiders remain tied for second in the division, two games behind the Chiefs, who lost to the Giants on Sunday.
“Every year is different,” Del Rio said. “We’ve got a very competitive division. The Chiefs haven’t run away, with us and the Chargers and the Broncos all kind of hovering there, still with a chance I think.”
Two games loom large on the schedule: at Kansas City, where the Raiders haven’t won since 2012, and at Philadelphia on Christmas night. The Eagles are proving weekly that their record and their skill are no fluke.
But up next are the Broncos, who are having their own struggles and shook up their staff Monday, firing offensive coordinator Mike McCoy and replacing him with Bill Musgrave, who was fired at the end of the 2016 season by Del Rio.
Under Musgrave, the Raiders were sixth in total offense. Under first-year coordinator Todd Downing, the Raiders are 21st in offense. It’s one of the more dramatic indicators that the Raiders have gone backward.
If the Broncos’ offense moves well Sunday and the Raiders’ offense struggles, it will make for another awkward and uncomfortable day.
Del Rio seemed unconcerned that Musgrave will have some secret to exploiting the Raiders’ poorly performing defense.
“You can’t change dramatically what you’ve done with your system in Week 12,” Del Rio said.
That is likely true, but further depressing news for Oakland. Because that means that here, in Week 12, this is who the Raiders are.