Finding end zone continues to be impossible task
Three straight carries by Doug Martin hadn’t breached the goal line. So on fourth down from the 1, the Raiders decided to get creative.
Receiver Dwayne Harris, sweeping from right to left, took a short pitch from quarterback Derek Carr — and was stopped by Derwin James, the Chargers’ safety whom the Raiders passed over in the draft in April.
“We’ve seen multiple teams score on that play,” Carr said. “They had trouble at first lining up to it, just like we saw on film. And as I’m sitting there, I’m like, ‘This is going to walk in.’ And then it didn’t.”
So ended the Raiders’ opening drive Sunday. And they did not reach that territory again in their 20-6 loss to the Chargers on a smoky afternoon at the Coliseum.
In falling to 1-8 on the season, the Raiders reached the red zone three times and did not score a touchdown. They haven’t scored a touchdown in their past nine quarters of play, and they’ve been outscored 75-9 over that stretch by the Colts, 49ers and Chargers.
Their opening drive Sunday totaled 13 plays and consumed nearly seven minutes, spurred by a 42-yard run on a fake punt by Johnny Townsend. It thudded to an end with the failed jet sweep to Harris, which head coach Jon Gruden said “should be secondguessed — because it didn’t work.”
“It had to be an ideal look for us to run it,” Harris said. “But we ran it. Definitely didn’t get blocked the way we ran it in practice.”
The effect, Carr said, was “gut-wrenching.”
“You move the ball straight down the field — which I felt we moved it pretty well all day,” Carr said. “We were 0-for-3 in the red zone on touchdowns. That’s terrible. Gotta work on that.”
This marks the first time the Raiders have gone consecutive games without a touchdown since Weeks 15-16 of the 2012 season. They actually won one of those games — a 15-0 win at Kansas City, thanks to a stout defense and five field goals from Sebastian Janikowski. On Sunday, the defense allowed a 91-yard touchdown drive before halftime and committed a high-profile breakdown on the first drive of the second half.
Quarterback Philip Rivers threw a short pass to running back Melvin Gordon, who made cornerback Gareon Conley and safety Reggie Nelson miss en route to a 66-yard touchdown. It was the 11th play of 40-plus yards allowed by the Raiders’ defense this season, most in the NFL, and gave the Chargers a 17-3 lead.
“We’ve been doubled up too many times, where the opponent scores on the last possession of the first half and the opening possession of the second half,” Gruden said. “It’s a lot for us to overcome right now when we become onedimensional.”
The Raiders got the running game going early, as Doug Martin had 49 yards on 10 carries by the early second quarter. Martin finished with just 15 carries for 61 yards. Carr completed 24 of 37 carries for 243 yards. He was sacked four times, including one by Melvin Ingram in the second quarter that caused a pivotal fumble with the Raiders in field-goal territory.
James, the Chargers’ safety, said their coaching staff “did a great job preparing us” for what the Raiders ran.
“I mean, everything we went over in film, they ended up running it,” James said. “We knew what they were going to try to do.”
Said Carr: “Without watching the film, just what I can remember, is we got some similar looks of stuff that we liked and they were playing similar coverages. And then in those similar coverages, they passed them off differently or did something different. They did a good job.”
The Raiders’ final real drive Sunday captured the tenor of this inauspicious season.
Facing 4th and 5 at the Chargers’ 19 with 4:13 left, coming out of a timeout, Carr rolled to his right and, feeling pressure, threw the ball into the ground. Possession, Chargers.
“We were trying to generate a pick for our halfback, and credit (the Chargers), they made a great play,” Gruden said. “We were looking for a big play in that situation and the Chargers smelled it out. So I take credit for that play call there.”
Carr was asked whether he could have tried to create a play and maintained: “With the look they gave us, (running back Jalen Richard) is the guy.”
“I wish I could tell you all about that play,” Carr said. “But no, not in that case. There’s literally ... it’s Jalen. The coverage they’re playing, everything, the way we designed it, it’s Jalen. I wish there was something else I could’ve done. You know that. I don’t want to lose. And so, yeah. I mean, obviously, it sucks.”