An issue of respect for respective QBs
In the third quarter of Sunday’s Steelers -Raiders game, there was a sequence that seemed to reinforce everything that Oakland fans believe the league thinks about the two franchises, going all the way back to the Immaculate Reception in 1972:
The Steelers get the breaks. The Raiders never do.
On 3rd-and-19 from the 22, Derek Carr went back to pass but the ball slipped out of his hand. It looked to many like an incomplete pass, but was ruled a fumble, recovered by Pittsburgh.
“I thought, for sure, I was throwing it,” Carr said. “It just slipped out of my hand as I was throwing it. I didn’t get hit, so I knew for sure that it just slipped out as I was trying to throw it going forward.”
Carr tried to get clarification from the officials.
“In those intense situations, they think you’re trying to come at them and they’re like, ‘It’s confirmed already,’ ” Carr said. “You don’t get to converse about it.”
Four plays later, Pittsburgh quarterback Joshua Dobbs did almost the exact same thing. But it was ruled an incompletion. Jon Gruden challenged the ruling but it was upheld.
“He had some guys reviewing it in New York,” the Raiders’ head coach said when asked what happened. “How the hell would I know? I can’t even see the guy. We have some guys ruling the game and making these decisions that you can’t even have a conversation with. I am not going to get fined or anything like that, but personally, I do not like the process of it. We have guys that are officiating the game, we have eight officials, guys in the box. I would appreciate if we had a face-to-face conversation.”
They didn’t. Gruden’s challenge was overruled. As was a previous challenge, also in the third quarter, when Gruden thought that Pittsburgh receiver JuJu Smith-Schuster stepped out of bounds.
“I saw the official throw his hat,” Gruden said. “That is the mechanics of a man stepping out of bounds. So we challenged it.
“I am not very good at the challenge process. I am going to try to stay in a good mood tonight, regardless.”
The process left Gruden with just one timeout and no more challenges, which could have come back to bite him.
It didn’t. But the process left the Raiders frustrated. Is an Oakland quarterback not as respected as a Pittsburgh quarterback?
And let’s not even wonder what would happen if the football had oddly slipped out of, say, Tom Brady’s hand.
Oh, wait. We already know.