The saddest moment in the Oakland game was after Baltimore punted from about the 40, and one of their coverage guys downed it at the 5. The announcer must have been on autopilot when he said, "Forcing the Raiders to drive the length of the field."

I laughed and thought, "More like setting up a safety." and sure enough, after two runs up the middle for no yardage, Oakland called one of their slow, seven-step drops on 3rd down, Baltimore swarmed, and down went the QB.

 

I thought exactly the same thing when the ball was downed at their five. In fact, I was rather surprised that it didn't happen until third down. I do wonder why that huge lineman was 5 steps deep in his own end zone to run into the quarterback though; if he had not been there it probably wouldn't have resulted in a safety.

I really wonder why Oakland continued to run the ball. True, they were only down by 13 at the half, thanks to a combination of their good defense and Baltimore's stale offense, but they were averaging just over a yard a carry. They had a total of 39 rushing yards, 35 of which came on three plays late in the game when Baltimore was leaving only 4 at the line. It's not as if they were going to run it enough to fake out the defense on a play action pass. They could have just gone deep on every play and it probably wouldn't have resulted in any more interceptions than the short pass game, hell, maybe they would have scored a touchdown.

It is fun to watch the Raiders get their asses handed to them though. At least it would be if they had actual fans to gloat to. Problem is, about 80% of the people you see wearing Raiders gear probably didn't even know they were playing yesterday (I bet there is a percentage that don't even know they are a football team).