Before this game every member of the PFF Picks team tipped the Raiders to walk away with the win, and though they did exactly that, it was in the least emphatic terms possible.
When a team is struggling as much as the Jaguars are, they simply find new ways to come up short, and players that may come off the bench to provide a spark in other circumstances simply wind up sinking into the same quicksand as the rest of the team.
Up by a touchdown with under four minutes to go, Jacksonville saw two plays that changed the game, with CB Aaron Ross almost single-handedly swinging momentum inside 30 seconds. The Raiders took two deep shots on him and, after playing the first one brilliantly, he then failed to hang on to the pick when he hit the ground. They went right back to him and this time he was flagged for pass interference, moving Oakland to the 1 from where they would score the tying touchdown.
Another gaffe eventually gave the Raiders the ball in scoring range in overtime for the win.
Jacksonville — Three Performances of Note
The Change at QB
Ironically enough, Blaine Gabbert was actually playing pretty well before he was crushed into the turf by the Raiders and forced from the game. He had completed 8 of 11 aimed passes for 110 yards and a touchdown, with one throwaway, on his way to a passer rating of 134.7. His backup, Chad Henne, is a player with some legitimate experience, but it is a testament to how badly things are going for the Jaguars that he was able to look considerably worse in relief.
Henne attempted just one pass over nine yards in the air, and that fell incomplete, and he finished the day with just nine completions on 20 attempts for 71 yards. Some throws were wide of the mark, but the biggest problem was that his timing being way off with his receivers on quick routes that should be routine. He was firing the ball at receivers before they made their breaks, which resulted in it flying past them before they had any hope of locating it and making a play. Some of that can be explained by a lack of practice time, but in truth that is too easy an excuse for some really basic misses.
Saddle Up!
One of the keys to this game was pressure on the quarterbacks. It was pressure, and more to the point heavy contact, that felled Gabbert early in the game, and pressure that resulted in one of the most ridiculous interceptions you will ever seen from Carson Palmer. The Jaguars were able to bring heat in serious quantities, with eight different defenders recording multiple pressures in the game, including six different defensive linemen.
In the end it wasn’t enough to get the job done as the offense couldn’t hold up their end of the bargain, but the Jaguars D finally started to look a little closer to the unit that was so underrated and impressive last season.
Coming Up Shorts
There was a point early last season where throwing at Cecil Shorts resulted in nothing but bad things. It was, largely speaking, a statistical quirk early in his career, but this game was like the period of time in between had never happened. Though he did score a touchdown and finish the game with 79 receiving yards, he caught just four of the balls thrown his way from 10 targets, dropped a simple pass across the middle that would have moved the chains, committed a pair of penalties, and, most importantly of all, coughed up the ball in overtime to set the Raiders up with the winning field goal attempt.
Shorts is a talented player, but there is no doubt that bad plays seem to plague him more than they should. Much of that is still down to his own ill-discipline and lack of attention to the little details. In this game it cost him and the team.
Oakland — Three Performances of Note
The RT Problem
It’s been a long time since the Raiders had a legitimate solution at right tackle and, on this evidence, Willie Smith is no closer to being that guy than the last few players to man the position. If there was pressure coming on Palmer, and there was much of the day, it was usually coming from Smith’s side. He didn’t give up a sack, but accounted for three knockdowns and four pressures and more than a third of the total pressure surrendered by the Raiders.
The worrying aspect is that he was beaten with a variety of pass-rush moves. With 12.23 to go in the fourth quarter he was driven back into the quarterback’s lap on a bullrush from George Selvie, but he was also beaten inside and out, and on stunts.
In a Huff
When Michael Huff first moved to corner to cover the raft of injuries the Raiders had suffered at the position, he looked so completely clueless and out of place that I thought it was just a matter of time before he was moved back and Oakland went in a different direction. Since then he has developed at incredible speed and is now looking like a legitimately good player at the position. His +4.7 grade this game is his best grade of the year and comes from allowing just 2 yards on one reception from the six times he was targeted.
Some of that comes from the inept play of the Jaguars’ offense, but Huff also broke up a pair of passes to Shorts and stuck his nose in when required in the run game.
Houston, We Have No Problem
Lamarr Houston can be an inconsistent character, but when he is on his game he is an excellent player. This was by far his best outing of the season and he represented his first sack. He added to that with another knockdown and two more pressures, but he was also vital in other areas of the game.
For some reason the Jaguars kept leaving him unblocked around the perimeter as they tried to run up the gut, and he consistently chased down the play to make tackles around the line of scrimmage, totaling six stops by the end of the day. And of course he came up with the biggest play of them all, chasing down Shorts and forcing the fumble that would give Oakland possession in field goal range in overtime.
Game Notes
— Unlike Henne, Palmer was all about the deep ball, attempting six passes of 20+ yards in the air and 13 passes of 10 or more.
— Punter Shane Lechler’s longest punt of the day was ‘just’ 49 yards, an unusually short mark for the best punter of the past decade.
— RB Rashad Jennings went over 100 yards from scrimmage with 58 receiving and 44 rushing, catching all seven passes thrown his way.
Game Ball
There was perhaps no real stand out performance in the game, but the biggest play at the biggest time was made by Lamarr Houston, and that earns him the game ball.
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