Raiders defense turns up the heat in the fourth quarter.
No one could have been happier to leave the Oakland Coliseum on Sunday night than Jordan Mills. He’s the Buffalo Bills’ right offensive tackle. This means that for much of the afternoon, he was blocking Raiders’ defender Khalil Mack.
Sorry, check that. For most of the afternoon, Mills was TRYING to block Mack.
In actual practice ... well, have you ever seen a western movie? You’ve probably noticed how every saloon has one of those weathered, chipped and dented swinging doors that the outlaws charge through to get inside? Sunday afternoon, Mills was that dented swinging door. And Mack was the outlaw.
And in this movie, the outlaw kept winning.
The Oakland Raiders keep knocking down doors — and opponents — and keep winning games. Sunday was no exception. The Raiders started slow. And then, in the second half, Mack led his team’s defense in as impressive a stretch of oh-no-youdon’t shutdown football as we’ve seen all season — with two turnovers he personally created by himself with a tipped pass and a strip-sack recovered fumble. This allowed the Raiders’ offense to roll out 29 unanswered points and stamp out a 38-24 victory.
“It’s almost expected,” said Raiders cornerback David Amerson of Mack’s singular wanton destruction. “You know he’s going to make a play. It’s just a matter of when. It’s nothing surprising.”
“Twenty nine unanswered points,” Mack repeated in the locker room afterward. “That’s something special.”
Yes, outscoring any NFL team by 29-0 over a 15minute stretch is laudable. But let’s not just focus on the 29 points. What about the zero?
“I like both,” said Raiders coach Jack Del Rio. “I like getting the 29, and I like giving the zero. Fortunately, they add up, they work together.”
Personally, I say that the zero was the more stunning and impactful number — primarily because back in September when the Raiders were giving up four touchdowns almost every weekend, there were questions about whether they would ever get their defensive act together.
I think we can speculate that their act is together.
The Raiders’ defense may not be able to spin out four quarters of zilch. But it is capable of going goose egg for long stretches where it most matters.
“Hats off to us,” said Mack’s linebacker pal, Bruce Irvin, fearlessly immodest. “We were giving up a lot of big plays at the beginning. We tightened it down and came together.”
And just in time. The next assignment is Thursday night in Kansas City. The Chiefs trail the Raiders by just one game in the AFC West. The Chiefs beat the Raiders earlier this season in Oakland. It’s no hyperbole to say that Thursday’s winner will be the likely division winner.
“It’s a big game,” Mack said. “You’ve got to embrace it.”
But first, for a couple of days, it’s fine to savor how the Raiders’ defense smothered Buffalo when it counted most. With 9:01 left in the third quarter, the Bills scored a touchdown that gave them a 24-9 lead. And then Mack began charging through Mills, the barroom door. On the Bills’ next four possessions, they made zero first downs and netted a combined three yards of offense. Buffalo didn’t make another first down until it was losing by two touchdowns.
“It was a snowball effect,” said Bills running back LeSean McCoy. “We couldn’t move the ball. It got bad.”
“I thought we got on our heels, and we never got off them,” said Buffalo coach Rex Ryan.
There were many Raider defenders who played well during Buffalo’s 15 minutes of nada. But no one will deny that Mack triggered everything. His push, principally against the right side of Buffalo’s line, was like watching a clinic. Like a boxer, he wore down Mills in the first half and then blew through him in the final rounds.
“He just keeps showing up huge,” said Del Rio about his edge rusher. “That’s what great players do.”
His signature moment in this particular stretch occurred with 10:45 left in the fourth quarter. The Bills were backed up deep in their own territory, and quarterback Tyrod Taylor dropped back into his own end zone. But just as he cocked his right arm and started bringing it forward, the onrushing Mack reached out with his left hand and slapped the back of the football, causing it to go high in the air with a tumbling motion. Out on the 17-yard-line, Raiders’ safety Nate Allen more or less made a fair catch of the ball, setting up an offensive touchdown four plays later.
“It’s just effort, effort,” Mack said of the play. “It’s just the will to win.”
His other self-made turnover was even more entertaining. As the Bills tried to mount their own comeback, Mack sacked Taylor and stripped the ball from him. It flew out into the air. Then, as Mack fell to the ground on his back, the ball spontaneously landed in his belly. He grabbed it for the fumble recovery.
“God works in mysterious ways,” Mack said. “I was surprised, too.”
The play not only ended Buffalo’s last threat, it led to chants from the crowd of “M-V-P, M-V-P” aimed directly at Mack’s ears. That was kind of a surprise, as well. So far, most of the talk about a Raider winning the NFL’s Most Valuable Player award in 2016 has been centered on quarterback Derek Carr. But now the love is spreading toward Mack. His reaction to the chants?
“Was Steph Curry in the house?” Mack responded. “Man, I’ve just got to keep balling out there and make plays.”
Mack, in his spare time, has also come up with the Raiders’ slogan for 2016 that the rest of his team has adopted: By any means.
If that means the defense must be the means, then Sunday means the Raiders and Mack are ready to be very mean with any swinging doors in Kansas City. It also means you might want to make an appointment to watch. This movie is getting pretty good.