National Football League

Raiders look to recover from late-game collapse

Published Dec. 20, 2011 5:02 p.m. ET

share

facebookxredditlink

foxsports

The Oakland Raiders' chances of ending an eight-year playoff drought have come down to this: They must win their final two games, and then hope.

Before the Raiders can start digging deep into the NFL's tiebreaking scenarios they have a much more important task. They must figure out how to get back on track following a three-game losing streak.

Lopsided losses at Miami and Green Bay were followed by perhaps Oakland's most crushing loss of the season. The Raiders (7-7) blew a 13-point lead in the closing minutes against Detroit and lost 28-27 on Sunday to deal a blow to their playoff hopes.

''Three weeks ago we were 7-4 and feeling pretty good about ourselves and now all of a sudden we've gotten to .500, so that's not where we want to be,'' coach Hue Jackson said. ''I think we understand the predicament that we have put ourselves in. So what we need to do is get the ship riding and go to Kansas City and play well.''

The players had the day off Monday because of the short week of preparation for a game Saturday in Kansas City. The mood in the locker room after the game was somber but the players know they need to put that in the past once practice starts Tuesday.

''There is no choice but to move on,'' quarterback Carson Palmer said. ''It'd be easy to go in the tank and say, `We blew our opportunity,' but we have a good group of leadership and we understand where we are and obviously we desperately needed this win. It didn't work out. But we've got two big games left, and who knows what happens with other teams. We need help obviously, but we've got to get over it.''

A win would have put Oakland into a tie for first in the AFC West with Denver and a tie with the New York Jets and Cincinnati in the race for the conference's final wild-card spot.

The Raiders now head into their closing stretch at Kansas City and home against San Diego with their once-promising playoff hopes flickering.

The simplest path to the postseason would be winning the final two games and hoping Denver loses at home to Kansas City in the season finale, giving the Raiders the division title based on a better division record.

The Broncos would get the edge if they lose this week at Buffalo and then beat Kansas City based on a better record against common opponents.

There also is still a remote chance the Raiders could sneak in as a wild-card team with a split of the final two games. But that would take two losses by both the Jets and Cincinnati, at least one loss by Tennessee and then Oakland coming out on top in the strength of victory tiebreaker.

''This is what I know, we just need to win,'' Jackson said. ''All that other stuff, I can't worry about it. We have lost three games in a row. ... We got two games to play, but we have to take it one game at a time. We can't worry about anything else that could happen, might happen or any of that. We need to win.''

This past game marked the seventh time this season Oakland's defense has been on the field in the final two minutes protecting a one-score lead. It was just the second time the Raiders failed to close one of those games out, following a 38-35 loss at Buffalo in the second game of the season.

Oakland's defense had done just enough to close out wins over Houston, Cleveland, San Diego, Minnesota and Chicago, but fell apart late against Matthew Stafford, Calvin Johnson and the Detroit Lions.

The Raiders took a 27-14 lead with 7:47 remaining when Aaron Curry returned a fumble 6 yards for a touchdown. Jackson opted to kick the extra point instead of going for the 2-point conversion that would have made it a 14-point game.

That decision proved costly when Stafford drove the Lions 71 yards to a score with 4:59 remaining and then got the ball back at his 2 with 2:14 left and no timeouts.

Two long passes to Johnson - including a 48-yarder down the middle against linebacker Rolando McClain and reserve safety Jerome Boyd - got Detroit deep into Oakland territory. A pass interference call against Stanford Routt gave Detroit a first down at the 6 and two plays later Stafford found an open Johnson for the winning score.

''You have to make plays down the stretch,'' Jackson said. ''The last two minutes of a football game is probably the most important part of the game. You make a first down, you probably win. You score, you win. You stop a team from scoring, you win. Throw all the other first 58 minutes out. Those last two minutes, you have to do the things that it takes to win.''

share

Get more from National Football League Follow your favorites to get information about games, news and more

in this topic

National Football League