S.F. Examiner: Mum Raiders have draft options

By Art Spander
San Francisco Examiner

The two men in charge of the Oakland Raiders threw shadows at a few media types on Friday. To no surprise. The subject was the upcoming NFL draft, and the team’s possible selection in the first round. Which will be a surprise until made.

Teams are built from the draft, we’re told. And from patience. Construction of the Great Wall of China seemingly was completed before construction of the Raiders, who for seasons have been putting things together brick by brick. And taking them apart in much the same manner.

Read the full story here.

© 2015 The San Francisco Examiner

Raiders weren’t going to let Chiefs out of the deep end

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — That “O’’ in Oakland? No longer does it equal the Raiders’ win total for the year. The streak is over. The streak ended here, at the O.co Coliseum — maybe they should change it to the 1.co Coliseum — on a Thursday night of rain and success.

Go ahead and say it, the drought has ended, for Nor Cal, for the Raiders.

It was inevitable. The football, that is, not the downpour, although the forecasters said that too was coming. The way Raiders interim coach Tony Sparano said a win was coming.

Teams don’t go through a 16-game NFL schedule without a victory. Sure, the 2008 Detroit Lions did, but since the 1976 Tampa Bay Bucs, an expansion doomed to failure by the system, the Lions were the only team.

Somehow, the Raiders were going to win one.

And they did against the Kansas City Chiefs, who had won their previous five games in a row and were tied for the AFC West lead.

They did by sweeping ahead 14-0 early in the second quarter. By letting that lead go and then, on a 9-yard touchdown pass from rookie quarterback Derek Carr to James Jones in the closing minutes, going back in front and winning 24-20.

“We’d been getting close,” said Sparano, who was coaching his seventh game since replacing Dennis Allen. “We’d been getting better in practice. I saw a different look in this team.”

And now there’s a different look with their record. One win may not seem like much, but to the contrary it’s huge when you’ve lost 10 out of 10 for the season and cobble that to the six straight defeats that concluded last year.

Not since Nov. 17, 2013, 368 days if you’re counting, had Oakland come out ahead.

“Those losses had been hard,” said Carr. He took over as starter from the veteran Matt Schaub before the first game. So since last year at Fresno State, he was always on the losing side. Until Thursday.

There was unabated joy in the Raider locker room. Such yelling and shouting. It was as if they had won the Super Bowl, not merely a scheduled game. “All that frustration that we’ve gone through when something goes wrong at the end,” said linebacker Sio Moore.

Moore and rookie Khalil Mack, also winless as a pro, did a bit of unprofessional celebrating — in the Chiefs' backfield — slapping hands after sacking quarterback Alex Smith on the K.C. 48 with 28 seconds. But before a penalty could be called for delay of game, Oakland wisely signaled time out. One more play, an incomplete pass, and the Raiders owned the ball. And the win.

“I was so caught up in the moment, man,” said Moore, who’s in his second year. “That was an error I’ve got to clean because in another situation — in all seriousness — that can make the difference. I do apologize for putting the guys in that situation. I can’t let emotions get the best of me.”

For 10 weeks, teams have been getting the best of the Raiders, although the way Oakland played defense in losing 13-6 to the Chargers last Sunday was verification that they were improved — if without results. Until Thursday night.

“I don’t know how to explain the feeling,” Moore said about finally winning a game. “It’s a good feeling to see through the culmination of weeks all the work that we’ve been putting in.

“We decided when we came in at halftime (with a 14-3 lead) that we weren’t going to let them get out of deep end of the pool, and we were going to finish it out.”

The Chiefs made it to the shallow end, but then the Raiders swamped them again.

Oakland scored first on an impressive eight-play drive, Latavius Murray bulling the final 11 yards. Then Murray dashed 90 yards two and a half minutes into the second quarter, and Oakland had its first 14-0 lead since the Twelth of Never.

“They blocked us,” said Chiefs coach Andy Reid, “(he) hit the hole, and we just weren’t able to catch him.

From two touchdowns back, Kansas City did catch the Raiders, however, and the guess was it would yet another Oakland defeat. Not at all.

“We learned a little something today,” said Sparano. “Learned something about ourselves. Today they just refused to give up the rope. My hat is off to the people in that locker room. Greatest feeling in the world is to see them smile. Helluva bunch of guys. They don’t stop playing. We don’t always do it right, but they play hard.

“Today the offense took the football down the field and did it in the old-fashioned Raider way. They ran it. They ran it. And we made a big play. It was a heck of a thing to watch, and if you didn’t learn anything from it, I apologize to you.”

No apologies needed this time. Only kudos.

Raiders' best game still not a winning game

By Art Spander

OAKLAND — He’s a kid, a rookie, a cornerback on an NFL team that five games into a painful season has changed coaches and even though winless well into October perhaps on Sunday finally changed direction.

“We all feel like we did something today,” said TJ Carrie.

What the Oakland Raiders did, at last, was compete, keep a game in doubt, show they are anything but hopeless.

What the Raiders didn’t do was win. As they haven’t won this season. The San Diego Chargers came from behind and beat Oakland 31-28 at O.co Coliseum. Even with professed Raider fan Tiger Woods in attendance.

It was the Raiders’ best game of the season, on offense. Quarterback Derek Carr, also a rookie, threw four touchdown passes. Darren McFadden ran for 80 yards. So encouraging.

But the Chargers, 5-1, as compared to the Raiders, 0-5, controlled the ball, had it 37 minutes of the total 60, gained 423 yards. It is a cliché that defense wins. In this case, for the Raiders, unable to halt Charger drives, especially the final one that climaxed with a Branden Oliver touchdown with 1:56 remaining.

A new coach for the Raiders, an interim coach, Tony Sparano, who was chosen to replace hard-luck Dennis Allen two weeks ago. An old result.

The players are the same. They seemed more spirited, more aggressive, more upbeat. But they were no more successful.

There are two requirements to create a winning football team, a defense and a quarterback. Without a defense, you virtually never get the ball — and when your time of possession is 15 fewer minutes, as it was for the Raiders, they virtually never had the ball. Without a quarterback, well, he touches the ball on every offensive play.

The Raiders appear to have the quarterback in Carr. He has started every game, and if Carrie, the cornerback, who got beat often enough, said he learned something, so did we about Carr. He’s poised. He’s aggressive. And he has a fantastic arm. Hey, on the third play from scrimmage he unloaded a 77-yard beauty to Andre Holmes for a touchdown. Shades of Peyton Manning.

“I thought our quarterback made some big plays,” said Sparano. He also made some mistakes, getting called for intentional grounding and then in the last minute, on a meticulous drive that seemed destined to produce a game-tying field goal, throwing a ball to the Charger 10 that was intercepted, ending not only a chance for victory but also a record.

Since the merger of the mid 1960s, the only rookies to throw four touchdown passes without an interception in a game were Robert Griffin III and Trent Edwards.

“He’s getting better and better,” said Sparano of Carr, who played collegiately at Fresno State. "On that first touchdown, they came with pressure, we expected the pressure, the guys handled it pretty well, but Derek kept through the progression and getting the ball to the right guy. That’s progress.

“The play at the end of the game, it’s second and very short (1 yard), we felt like we’d make the first down, took a shot and that kid (Jason Verrett, also a rookie, from Fairfield, about 35 miles from the Coliseum) made a great play.”

Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers, as expected, made a ton of great plays. He threw three touchdown passes and has 15 in six games, with only two interceptions.

“We thought about blitzing him,” Sparano said about Rivers. “We blitzed him a couple of times early. We got to him a couple of different ways, but with Philip, as I said earlier in the week, if you don’t tackle him he’s a guy that buys time. He’s going to hurt you in those situations, and he hurt us in one or two of those situations today. You have to pick your poison a little bit with him.”

They’ll find no antidote in Carson Palmer of Arizona, next week’s opponent. The Cardinals are 4-1, and Palmer, who was with the Raiders three years ago, has recovered from his injuries.

“That’s the best team in the league according to some,” Sparano said of the Cardinals, and then switching to San Diego, “That’s one of the best teams out there today, and our kids played hard. We have to be in these kind of football games and finally one of these kind of games. That’s how we turn this thing around.”

They turn it around by shutting down the opponent, by playing the sort of defense the Raiders have not displayed for years.

Carrie could be part of that renaissance.

“His impact,” Sparano said of Carrie, ”was in two areas. I felt him challenging the ball on defense. I felt him around the ball. And then on special teams, on kickoffs (3 for 85 yards) and the punt returns, he really did a nice job.

“Look at TJ. Look at (rookie linebacker) Khalil Mack flying around and Gabe Jackson and these kids. It’s a good place to be right now.”

Did he mean for the Raiders or, as was the case for the Chargers and their dominant time of possession, the opposition? For Oakland there weren’t enough stops. And at 0-5, there certainly aren’t enough wins.

Raiders smart, but Manziel would have been a story

By Art Spander

ALAMEDA, Calif. — The Raiders were wise and logical, employing their first-round pick Thursday to draft a linebacker who observers claim can do everything, much needed by a defense that could do very little.

Oh, if only the Raiders were less wise and more whimsical.

That Oakland took Khalil Mack of the University of Buffalo was both expected and well regarded.

Sporting journalists were resigned to the move while, sob, wishing instead for Johnny Manziel. It was to dream.

As the man who once ran the Raiders, the late Al Davis, told us in no uncertain terms, the idea is to “Just win, baby.” 

Since the Raiders have not just won for 11 consecutive seasons, the selection of Mack — who “could have been the No. 1 overall pick,” wrote one scouting service — indicates that the organization is intent on changing both its record and its culture.

Yet think of how much fun it would have been by the Bay had Oakland chosen Manziel, the quarterback known as Johnny Football and the only guy in the draft who mattered, according to ESPN, the organization that dictates our tastes in things athletic.

Did the Raiders need to use the No. 5 pick of the first round on a QB, especially one supposedly both undersized and undisciplined? Not at all. They smartly took Mack, excellent at bringing down the passer.

Those of us with long memories recall Al Davis maybe 30 years ago, perhaps more, saying in one of those NFL Films segments, “The quarterback must go down, and he must go down hard.”

That was before the NFL became a passing league.

So, all credit to Raider GM Reggie McKenzie and head coach Dennis Allen. “He understands how to rush the passer, and to rush the passer with power,” Allen said of Mack, who played at University of Buffalo.

Beautiful, but do Allen and McKenzie understand what makes a great story? We humble folk behind the microphones and laptops most certainly do.

Imagine Johnny Manziel with the Raiders, even as a backup, and Colin Kaepernick with the 49ers, who face Oakland in a league game during the fall.

Sports writers, columnists, TV reporters, radio reporters, ESPN, CNN, Fox, and even Al Jazeera would have been lined up from Santa Clara to the Golden Gate Bridge for interviews.

Sure, Kap doesn’t say very much, and Johnny Football would be a backup, but that’s beside the point. They’re famous, which is not beside the point as you note from recent sporting tales. Fame sells.

We could have tossed in Alex Smith and Aaron Rodgers, brought up JaMarcus Russell. Pride, poise and pronouns. How enthralling. Alas, how impossible.

Manziel looked like someone who had swallowed a whole lemon as, unable to avoid the cameras, he waited while the draft plodded along. He finally went at No. 22. Shades of Aaron Rodgers in 2005.

But the Rodgers story was primarily local. He was a Cal kid, and the Niners had the No. 1 pick in the draft. Mike Nolan decided on Smith. Rodgers, falling to 24th in the opening round, eventually went to Green Bay and subsequently to the Super Bowl, State Farm commercials and a promo ad for the new Seth Rogen movie, “Neighbors.” See how things grow?

We could have blown up this Kaepernick vs. Manziel thing to where that’s all anyone would have been talking about. No such luck. Johnny Football is stuck in Cleveland, where the probability is he won’t make anyone forget Otto Graham or even Tim Couch.

What the Raiders want to forget is the recent past, their failings on defense. You have to stop the other guys or it doesn’t matter if Joe Montana or Jim Plunkett is your quarterback.

Enter then, along with Oakland free agent signings Justin Tuck and LaMarr Woodley, Khalil Mack.

Nobody — nobody — had a discouraging thing to say about Mack. Just the opposite. “Mack may be the most complete defender in the draft,” wrote Chris Burke in a Sports Illustrated blog. “Even ahead of (Jadeveon) Clowney. Considering he is adept at rushing the passer, stuffing the run and dropping in coverage, working him into the mix should not be too difficult.”

It is waste of time to ask of a sporting organization if it likes the picks it makes in a draft. “If they didn’t like them,” John Madden often said, “they wouldn’t have made them.”

Still, McKenzie and Allen, beginning their third year with the Raiders, seemed especially joyful.

“He’s a real man,” said Allen of Mack. “He’s a football-first guy. And he’s got tremendous work ethic and he’s a team player.”

Agreed. But Johnny Manziel is a story. Sob.

Do Raiders depend on McGloin or Pryor?

By Art Spander

OAKLAND, Calif. — The reference was to education. The Raiders, the head coach, the quarterback, kept using the word “learning,” as if this season, going from bad to worse to “Please don’t use the word dreadful,” is something for which they’ll get a grade from the friendly prof down the hall.

While the Raiders are being schooled, so are the rest of us, learning first that the team probably needs a quarterback, that Matt McGloin doesn’t appear to be the man of future or the present and Terrelle Pryor doesn’t seem to be much of anything — at least in the eyes of those in charge.

Johnny Manziel, you say? Only if the Raiders can do more in the 2014 draft then they were able to do against the Kansas City Chiefs.

It was a brutal Sunday at O.co Coliseum, chilly, mortifying, at least for the majority of the 49,571 fans. Kansas City, as effective as the Raiders were inept, beat Oakland, 56-31, the Raiders allowing the most points in the history of a franchise that came into existence in 1960.

McGloin threw four interceptions and lost a fumble. Pryor, who was inserted now and then for no good reason or maybe for a very good reason, threw one interception. And there was another lost fumble on a kickoff by Taiwan Jones, making it seven turnovers for the Raiders.

Maybe they were lucky they only gave up 56 points.

“You can’t play a good team like that and turn the ball over seven times,” said Raiders coach Dennis Allen, now 4-10 in this second season of his regime. Yes you can. The implication was if you do that you’ll get buried. And the Raiders were buried.

The defense wasn’t much either. Kansas City, on a long kickoff return and a 49-yard screen pass, scored the first of its eight touchdowns just 22 seconds into the game. Running back Jamaal Charles tied a Chiefs record with five touchdowns. And he didn’t play a considerable part of the fourth quarter.

McGloin, the undrafted free agent, played most of the game. He completed half of his 36 pass attempts for 297 yards and two touchdowns. But those four picks, one returned for a touchdown, made one wonder if he has the right stuff to be a starter in the NFL.

“There are always difficult situations,” said Allen, a defensive specialist defending his two rookie quarterbacks. “But hopefully those guys can learn from those mistakes. It’s tough when you’re going through the learning process, because as the losses mount up it gets frustrating.”

The real question is whether Oakland dares depend on either McGloin, who began the season a fourth-string QB, or Pryor, the surprise starter in Game 1 but later injured, beyond this year. Do the Raiders rely either on a quarterback ignored in the draft or another who is more of a runner than a passer for the coming seasons?

Or do they start over, perhaps with one of the top college players who seemingly will be available?

Nobody in the organization will comment until the end of this season, but Allen, explaining the Pryor-for-McGloin-for-Pryor shift and juggle said, “Obviously we’ve got two guys that we want to be able to utilize, and we’ve got to find ways to get explosive plays.

“And we were able to get explosive plays today. We got a lot of balls down the field. We had a lot of explosive passes, as well as explosive penalties. We just weren’t consistent enough, and we can’t turn the ball over like we did. We have to do a better job on our red zone defense of making them have to kick field goals.”

But they were unable. They are unable. This team, glued together from bits and scraps, tormented by the salary cap, has shredded and shriveled in recent weeks.

The defense is worn and battered. The supposedly best offensive player, running back Darren McFadden, always is injured. McGloin is a notch down from the elite level. Pryor is unpolished.

“We had some good drives,” was McGloin’s analysis. “We had some poor drives. I’ll learn from it. We’ll learn from it. I’ll get better from it, and I know the rest of the guys will get better from it.”

Will he? Will they? This was the fifth game McGloin has started. It was anything but encouraging. He’s learning, but so are the opponents about McGloin. They step in front of his receivers. They chase him out of the pocket.

“I’m at a loss for words,” McGloin said of the turnovers. “It’s disappointing. But at the same time we were still in the game. It was 35-31 at one point with all the turnovers.

“There’s always passes you kind of wish you could pull back, but that’s part of the game. They did make some good plays, but some of those throws were poor decisions.”

McGloin, denying reality, insisted he isn’t auditioning for next year, when in effect, even while trying to win now, he and the other Raiders, young and older, are playing for their future.

“We’re going to learn from the poor decisions, the mistakes,” said McGloin. “As long as we know what they are, I can go away saying that the more experience I get, I’ll learn from it.”

If, indeed, it will make any difference to him or the Raiders.