The Final Quarter-Behind the Stats

Oakland Raiders vs. San Diego Chargers

By Barbara Mason 11/01/2009

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It was the first quarter interception by Oakland’s Chris Johnson that tied up the game 7-7 as the Raiders traveled down south for a meeting with the rival San Diego Chargers.  After last week fiasco against the New York Jets in an unspeakable performance, Sunday’s game in San Diego had a possibility of a rerun. Oakland has been so up and down this season that expectations for improvements are seldom reality with the team suffering more downs than ups.  The Raiders have as of yet not played two solid games in a row.

San Diego running back LaDainian Tomlinson rushed for two touchdowns in the first half to put his team up 21-10 at the half.  It seems that Tomlinson always starts licking his chops when the Raiders come to town, although he has not been as sharp as in year’s past.  He did turn it up a notch in this game however, with the two scores.  Something about the Oakland Raiders usually brings out the best in him.

The good news is that the Raiders were in this game.  The bad news is the 24-16 loss for Oakland dropping them to 2-6.  As the season reached the mid-way point for the Raiders this weekend, it would seem that the words echoed by Richard Seymour will not come to pass.  There will be no appearance in the post-season for the team this year; not with the remaining schedule Oakland is facing.

This is the first time in awhile that the Raiders will have a bye mid-way through the season.  They will have two weeks to prepare for the struggling Kansas City Chiefs on November 15 at home.  Oakland is making progress; it’s just that it has been so painfully slow so this bye will be more than welcome.

Positives

The 60 yard kickoff return by Jonathan Holland just before the half gave the Raiders a real lift setting up a possible touchdown.  Although the touchdown did not materialize Oakland did come out with a field goal.  Holland had a 29 yard average on returns.

Quarterback JaMarcus Russell is coming along slowly and had a decent day.  He was 14 of 22 for 109 yards.  While that is only about 8 yards per completion and will not set the world on fire, they are completions.  If you string a couple of those together, you can start to rack up some first downs.  He did have one interception.

The Raiders did possess the ball for 29:31 of the game which is an improvement over past games this season.

Penalties were not all that bad - 6 of them for 31 yards.

Janikowski was on the mark with 3 field goals as was Shane Lechler

Negatives

The Raiders lost the passing battle 81 yards to San Diego’s 246.  Russell did throw for 109 yards but was also sacked 5 times resulting in 29 lost yards.

The Raiders did not take advantage of the opportunities thrown their way.  If two of those field goals had been touchdowns we would have been looking at a tie game but we all know what they say about ifs and buts.]

This was the 13^th loss in a row to the San Diego Chargers.

SNAPSHOT

The Raiders were in this game and did not hand it over to San Diego.  It was not a blowout which is some measure of success these days for the Raiders.  Russell seems to be coming around but still has a long way to go.  Hopefully the bye week will give the team some precious time to work on offense and come back onto the field to handle the Kansas City Chiefs.