how big was that miss by rackers ?
Vickers screwed up. Cost us.
Rackers screwed up. Cost us.
Dreessen dropped an easy pass that Kubiak challenged. Cost us.
O-line acted like they had never run blocked before. Cost us.
The two most productive plays for Arian Foster were both, IIRC, the little swing pass to him as he headed out of the backfield and toward sideline. The old "pass play that's like a running play when your running game isn't working" play. Yet we only did that twice, IIRC. THAT cost us.
Jacoby Jones, IMO, is running his routes too deep before making his cut, which means Schaub's passes that look like Schaub is underthrowing and hitting the dirt in from of JJ is more JJ's fault than anything. I have been thinking about it. I sat there in the stadium and thought, "Why is this same scenario--the ball being thrown to JJ too high or too low all the time--continuing to happen so much? Maybe JJ is not running SHARP, CLEAN, ACCURATE routes and Schaub is subsequently throwing it higher than where JJ is at that moment in the route or Schaub is throwing it too shallow. Know what I mean? That sort of stuff cost us today. Multiple times.
Joe Marciano's team not being ready for a fake punt? Cost us.
Putting Danieal Manning all the way up into the box and leaving CBs on an island against big, fast WRs of the Raiders? Cost us. I just sat there and shook my head. Manning is a ball hawk, you get him roaming the secondary and making catches out there.
Outside of Cushing and Johnathan Joseph, nobody on defense did anything consistently GOOD today.
This game was like a fog. I sat there, in the stadium, and just shook my head. My head shaking and my sour mood began in the 2nd quarter when it became apparent that for some reason the Texans were destined to lose this game. I think when Mario went out, the rest of our team's fire and confidence did too. As if "Well, we could survive until AJ gets back...but now that Mario is gone? Eff it. We're screwed."
I had a bad feeling in the 2nd quarter when we would hold them to FG attempts and The Janitor was nailing his long kicks on us. We're SCREWED. All they have to do is FG us to death, and they did. They knew we'd bend and then tighten up near FG range...and they knew all they had to do was just get the oompa loompa in tight silver pants within 60 yards of the posts.
Game over. Raiders game plan > Texans non-game plan.