By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
MIAMI — This is what the great ones do. They win a game that could have been lost, maybe should have been lost. The 49ers and their fans know all about it. They watched Joe Montana and Steve Young do it for them in the good old days.
Copyright 2020, The Maven
By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
OAKLAND — That was the real world, the NFL. That was the team that came within an overtime loss of reaching the Super Bowl, the Kansas City Chiefs. That was the quarterback, Patrick Mahomes, who was the NFL offensive player of the year.
Copyright 2019, The Maven
By Art Spander
For Maven Sports
OAKLAND, Calif. — The trend had started. Torches were being passed, along with footballs and, down in the Australian Open, tennis players indiscriminate enough to rush the net.
Copyright 2019, The Maven
Email Article By Art Spander
OAKLAND, Calif. — The Raiders did so much to lose this one. Then they did just enough to win.
Those complaints about the NFL, that it’s dull, that the anthem protests have ruined the game, that the fans don’t care? Well, the head coach of the Raiders, Jack Del Rio, certainly cares. The sport enthralls him.
For the very reasons that were present Thursday night at the Coliseum, tension, passion, frustration and then, with 0:00 left on the clock, exhilaration.
“That’s why we love this game,” said Del Rio. “We talked about love, loving each other, loving the opportunity to compete, loving the challenges that are part of what we do. Love to be in the theater when you’re putting your neck out there for the whole world to watch.”
At least the part of the world that included the 55,090 in the stadium and the millions in front of television sets.
The winning play was the last play of a game that early in the fourth quarter seemed like Oakland’s last chance.
But headed for a fifth straight defeat, the Raiders turned things around and headed elatedly to the locker room with a 31-30 win over the Kansas City Chiefs.
Derek Carr, who had completed 28 passes for 415 yards, completed his 29th for two more yards and a touchdown to Michael Crabtree just across the goal line, and then Georgio Taveccio kicked the extra point.
The Raiders somehow managed to get the victory, despite having allowed KC to go 99 yards in three plays for a touchdown — so much for field position. Despite being thwarted when, inexplicably and stupidly, hometown guy Marshawn Lynch left the bench, shoved an official and was ejected. Despite being burned by scoring pass plays of 64 and 63 yards.
The win was absolutely vital. “Yeah,” said Del Rio. “It’s been vital. It was vital last week. It was vital the week before. It’s vital to win in this league.”
Especially when the Raiders appeared destined to lose to a team they rarely beat.
The closing sequence was chaotic, offensive pass interference against Crabtree that nullified an apparent touchdown with three seconds to go, defensive holding with time expired, defensive holding again and finally the completion for the touchdown.
The purists tell us the only thing that matters in a sport is the score, but that would be like only watching the final act of “Hamlet” where they’re carrying him. Sure, getting the victory was paramount, but the way this one played out, with excellence and mistakes, with leads that couldn’t be held and passes that could be held, was so much a part of the tale.
The Raiders go in front, 14-10, their punter Marquette King kicks a ball that is downed on the Chiefs’ one and almost before anyone knew it, three plays, 1 minute 32 seconds to be exact, KC was ahead, 17-14.
Then there was Lynch, Beast Mode. He hadn’t done much, two carries for nine yards, when midway through the second quarter there was an unnecessary roughness call on KC that seemingly kept alive an Oakland drive. But Lynch, from the sideline, dashed onto the field and into an altercation. Next thing you saw, he was manhandling an official, the Raiders had first and 25 and he had a seat in the locker room.
“I was disappointed,” said Del Rio.”We were in good shape. Next thing I knew he was being tossed.”
It was the tossing by Carr, his second game after returning from a broken bone in his lower back, that meant more. He passed for three touchdowns including the game winner.
“We’re going to find a way,” said Del Rio of the Raiders' grit. “Our guys came in with a great mindset, and we were determined to leave here with a victory.”
They did. “It was huge,” said the said the coach.
And incredibly exciting.
By Art Spander
OAKLAND — This always was NFL territory. The 49ers were an original, created in 1946, the first major league team in the Bay Area, home grown, home owned.
The Raiders also began here, in 1960, and they put Oakland on the map and in the minds of a sporting public back east that previously didn’t know Jack London from Jack Spratt. If you lived in Oakland, or San Leandro, you no longer had to explain, “Near San Francisco.”
The Niners reinforced their standing as the region’s team of choice with five Super Bowl wins. The Raiders became as notorious as they were successful, and suddenly black became the color of choice.
So popular was football you’d see kids throwing and catching one in the parking lots before baseball games of the Giants and Athletics.
Has there been a shift in preference? When asked to rank the teams in order of importance, the decision was Niners first, Giants next, Raiders third, Warriors fourth, Athletics fifth and solely because hockey, as exciting as it might be, didn’t have the weather or conditions required, the Sharks sixth.
But now I wonder. Yes, the Niners finally won a road game Sunday, beating the Bears in Chicago, 26-20, thus keeping the Faithful faithful. And here in Oakland, after a morning rain, the Raiders drew 55,010 fans to O.co Coliseum, where, unfortunately, the team showed with a 34-20 loss to Kansas City that it’s not as good as hoped.
Indeed, football is big. But bigger than the Warriors, the sports story of the late fall in Northern Cal — or maybe everywhere? With their remarkable season-opening win streak, now up to an NBA record 22, after they beat the Brooklyn Nets, 114-98, Sunday? With their wonderful talent named Steph Curry who, with apologies to Tom Brady or Cam Newton, may be the single most exciting athlete in the land, and unquestionably is the most exciting around here?
Yes, I was at O.Co Coliseum for the Raiders. I also watched the Niners, and I contended that despite the problems with Jed York, with Colin Kaepernick, with the departure of Jim Harbaugh, they still are worthy of the main headline. It was a losing debate. “You’re wrong,” said the Chronicle’s Ann Killion. “The Warriors are the team.”
Raider Nation still is very much with us. The Black Hole remains (although after Sunday‘s loss it’s as blue as the color of the Warriors’ road uniforms). Niner fans cling to the memories of Montana, Young, Rice and Lott, believing the past is prelude to the future. TV ratings for both 49ers and Raiders are solid. And yet...
The football teams are mediocre at best. The win over Chicago put the Niners at 4-8. The loss to the Chiefs — “The game got away from us,” said Oakland coach Jack Del Rio — left the Raiders at 5-7. Neither is going to the playoffs.
But, ah, the Warriors, perfection, 22-0. Never been done before. Ever. Historic. Fantastic. The defending NBA champions very well could win a second straight championship. The team of Oakland, San Francisco, San Jose, Milpitas and Marin. The Warriors resonate. But how much?
Basketball, like baseball and hockey, suffers from a multiplicity of games. Right now, certainly, each Warriors game has a place of its own, as anxious fans wonder if the next one will be the one they finally, inevitably lose. This is rare. This is wonderful. This is keeping us attentive.
This is transforming one of 82 into one of a kind, similar to what happens in the NFL. Each game has a special significance. The Raiders came into Sunday at 5-6, the Chiefs 6-5. A Raider victory would have changed the season for each team. We buy into that “Any given Sunday” idea because, yes, any given Sunday, or Monday or Thursday, does have an effect on a team, on a season.
So you heard Del Rio, after the Raiders squandered their lead by allowing KC three touchdowns on a combination of Derek Carr interceptions and long returns, say, “Tough way to finish. Promising afternoon. It just got away from us.”
He meant the game. We could also interpret it to mean the season. “The last four drives,” sighed Del Rio, “were three turnovers and a missed field goal.”
Those descriptions also apply in basketball. The missed field goals and turnovers by the Warriors didn’t hurt them. For the opening five weeks and 22 games of the 2015-16 season, nothing has hurt them.
They have become the darlings of pro basketball, the darlings of the Bay Area. But are they bigger than the 49ers or Raiders? Easier to say how many angels can dance on the head of a pin.
Chiefs, Jack Del Rio, Oakland Raiders Email Article