Wild Card Recap: Oakland Raiders at Houston Texans

Post-game recap of the Oakland Raiders Wild Card loss to the Houston Texans.

The Oakland Raiders entered their first playoff game in 14 years with subdued optimism and exited Houston with a convincing defeat.

You see, Oakland had a legitimate MVP-candidate at quarterback in Derek Carr, who had, in addition to the conventional stats you’d expect from an MVP-candidate, an NFL record five game-winning touchdown passes in the 4th quarter or overtime before breaking his ankle in garbage time of the Oakland’s Week 16 victory over the Indianapolis Colts.

The Raiders at full strength were one of the four best teams in all of football this year. They were in contention for the AFC’s #1 seed all season, but with rookie quarterback Connor Cook making his first career start in the playoffs, Oakland’s offense was no match for Houston’s defense.

Oakland not only had to play without arguably the most valuable player in football this season, they also had to go without Pro Bowl left tackle Donald Penn.

Oddly enough, were it not for somewhere between 7 and 10 drops by Oakland receivers who gave Cook zero help, the Raiders very well may have won this game. Think about that for a second.

With just over a minute to go before halftime, Oakland got on the board with a 2-yard Latavius Murray touchdown run to bring the score to 10-7. And then with under three minutes to play in the half, the Raiders possessed the ball and only trailed by six. The rest of the first half was uneventful, as the teams exchanged seven consecutive punts.

With 6:34 to play, the Raiders had the ball trailing by 13. A Connor Cook interception on a sailed pass that still hit his receiver in his hands with 4:40 to go effectively put the game on ice. With under five minutes to go, with a rookie playing the part of their MVP-candidate signal-caller, the final steel-stake wasn’t yet nailed into the proverbial Raider-coffin. This is a talented football team that should be feared by the rest of the NFL going forward.

Oakland had their chances, but the deck was just stacked against them. It was a valiant effort.

As this season ends, the phoenix of excitement for next season begins to spring from the ashes of this defeat.

Oakland arguably had one of the top-three rosters or teams in the NFL when fully healthy. They will have some cap-space this offseason even after considering the money they must set aside to resign key players like Khalil Mack, Carr, Amari Cooper and Gabe Jackson. They can plug a hole or two on the open market. Oakland is now one of the most attractive free agent-destinations in the entire league. Reggie McKenzie will also have a full compliment of draft picks.

Things are trending up.

But back to the game.

As a rookie making his first career start in the playoffs Connor Cook was, in a word, bad. Even if you grant that his receivers might have dropped, at most, ten passes, he was still just 18 of 45 for 161 yards (3.6 yards per attempt) with one touchdown and three interceptions. His passer rating was 30.0, and while a couple of his interceptions were tipped, he was lucky to have not thrown several more picks. Considering what he was facing — the number one defense in the league in his first career start in a road playoff game — it’s hard to be upset of disappointed with Cook’s performance.

Oakland could get nothing going on the ground all game as Murray paced the Raider-rushing attack with 39 yards on 12 carries (3.3 YPC) to go along with his second quarter rushing touchdown. Excluding a 14-yard DeAndre Washington run, no other Oakland ball-carrier had more than one carry while averaging more than one yard per carry.

Andre Holmes came on strong late and finished with four receptions for 50 yards and a touchdown, all team highs. Michael Crabtree had two receptions for 33 yards, Mychal Rivera had 4 for 31, Clive Walford had 2 for 16, while Amari Cooper was held in-check all night (either by the Texans defense or his quarterback’s arm), only recording 10 yards on 2 receptions.

Khalil Mack, with his outstanding case for the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year award this season, paced Oakland with 11 tackles, (eight solo) and two tackles for loss. No other Raider had more than 6 tackles although Denico Autry, Malcolm Smith, and Brynden Trawick combined for 4 tackles for loss.

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Malcom Smith lead the Oakland pass-defense with 2 passes defensed with Autry, T.J. Carrie, and Sean Smith each breaking up a pass a piece.

Jalen Richard had a 37-yard punt return and Sebastian Janikowski was perfect on the evening with two extra points converted in two attempts.

Marquette King punted 10 times for 457 yards (45.7 yards per punt), leaving two of his boots inside the 20.

NFL Free Agency begins March 9th.

The NFL Draft starts April 27th.

The 2017 regular season beings September 10th.

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