Oakland Raiders 15, Denver Broncos 12
The Denver Broncos squandered a 12-0 first half lead to the Oakland Raiders at home Sunday afternoon. The final score of 12-15 loss was the team’s third of the season was due in large part to the increasing problem of the Broncos red zone woes.
Out-gaining the Raiders 224 yards to -12 in the first half the Broncos could have been up big. Instead they allowed an opponent to stick around, as they have several times this season and it caught up to them. The Raiders scored a touchdown on their opening drive, recorded a safety just before the fourth quarter and a muffed punt resulted in a second Raiders touchdown.
The Broncos defense played extremely well for most of the game, giving up just 126 net yards in the contest. Von Miller added a sack and Raiders quarterback Derek Carr did little to disrupt the Broncos top-ranked passing defense.
However in the end it came down to the turnover ratio and the red zone touchdown percentages. The Raiders won both. They were 2 of 2 in the red zone and +3 in turnover margin.
With plenty of blame to go around check out who had the worst night and what the Broncos had to say after the tough loss.
Worst Quotes
Head coach Gary Kubiak on the loss:
“I think we had [224] yards at halftime. I think they had negative yardage, and you’re up 12-to-nothing. We had a chance to really do some damage in the first half, didn’t do it and then obviously helped them in the second half with two turnovers, I think four or five drops and we lost the line of scrimmage offensively, in my opinion. We played great defense and just didn’t ever finish the football game offensively or put ourselves in a position to finish them.”
Chris Harris Jr on the frustrating loss:
“I’m hot. We were not supposed to lose that game. We played terrible in the second half, gave them the ball every time. So we’ve just got to be smarter. We can’t beat ourselves. This is going to be a tough team to beat if we don’t beat ourselves,” he said. “Defensive wise, we played great. I don’t know how many yards they had, we shut them down. The only thing we didn’t do today was get turnovers, so I’m just going to worry about our defense, what we can do to continue to get better and the only thing we can do to get better is try to force turnovers.”
Owen Daniels on red zone problems:
“It is frustrating because all other areas of the field it seems we are pretty good. I don’t know if we need to execute better, call different plays, I have no idea what it really is.”
Worst play of the game
The Broncos lead was cut to 12-9 following a Khalil Mack sack in the Broncos end zone that resulted in a safety and just one drive later Emmanuel Sanders lined up as the punt returner at the beginning of the fourth quarter. Marquette King skied a punt and Sanders was under it but could not bring it into his body. The ball bounced on the turf and despite his best effort to jump on it, it bounced into Raiders long snapper Jon Condo’s hands.
Although the Broncos were struggling mightily in the second half already, the fumble gave the Raiders the ball at the 11 yard line. Four plays later the Raiders took the final 15-12 lead on a 16-yard touchdown pass to Mychal Rivera.
“I fumbled and you know it was a big time mood swing,” Sanders said postgame. “I put this entire game on my back. If I would have never muffed it who knows what would have happened so this one is on me.”
Runner up: Two other plays had big impacts on the game. With 6:59 left in the third quarter and a five-point lead still intact, Demaryius Thomas fumbled the ball following a pass from Osweiler. The turnover did not cost the Broncos any points but it ended a drive neat midfield and added to the momentum swing. Vernon Davis also had a drop on fourth down that if caught, likely would have put the Broncos into field goal range and a chance at tying the game with just a few minutes to play.
“The ball was thrown, I got super excited because I knew I was going to be wide open, took my eyes off the ball and wasn’t able to pull it in. I should know better than that. I’ve got to get better,” Davis said after the loss.
LVPs
Broncos offense was pedestrian at best Sunday afternoon and many players did not play to their potential. With that said, a group of players couldn’t get on the same page or excel at any particular level of play.
The offensive line has struggled to protect the quarterback all season and Sunday was not different. They allowed eight quarterback hits and five sacks (all from Mack). The tackles in particular were unable to block the pass rush but that is not just where the group failed.
After two weeks of well executed run blocking the Broncos line came out and couldn’t get anything going to keep the Raiders balanced. The Raiders defense entered Sunday’s contest allowing an average of 106.7 yards per game, good for 17th in the NFL. The Broncos only gained 34 yards on 21 attempts for a horrid average of 1.6 yards per carry.
“We lost the line of scrimmage,” Kubiak said. “There is no doubt we got pushed around. We did not run the ball well at all. They were in our backfield. I think we had 16 carries for [25] yards in the first half. Came out in the third quarter, I think we had four three-and-outs and we dropped a few balls, turned the ball over—just added that to the we were struggling at the line of scrimmage. We had many, many chances to get it done and didn’t get it done.”
Runner up: The blame for the loss should go squarely on the Broncos offense’s shoulders but one area of the defense allowed the struggling Raiders offense to find success. The tight ends came up with big plays when the Raiders needed them most. Rivera and Clive Walford combined for six catches for 96 receiving yards and one touchdown. It is not great numbers but accounted for over 75 percent of their net yards on the day.
“You’ve got [Chris] Harris, [Bradley] Roby and [Aqib] Talib, those guys are three of the best corners in the whole NFL, and they’re all on the same team. You’re going to have chances to go at them, take shots at them, but you’ve got to be smart about it,” Carr said about avoiding the Broncos cornerbacks. “Coach [Offensive Coordinator Bill] Musgrave did a great job of designing plays to get the tight ends involved and things like that. I thought that he did a great job at that.”
Worst statistics
The worst statistic and one that often determines the game is the turnover battle. The Broncos second half included turnovers via three fumbles. Two were lost and the third was recovered but for a safety. The Broncos also turned the ball over twice on downs to end the game. Conversely, the Raiders, regardless of their poor play on offense, did not turn the ball over. They fumbled three times but recovered each of them.
The Broncos finished 4 of 18 on third down for a measly 22 percent, well below their already worrisome 34.1 percent season average. Their offense began much like last week. They used a mixture of pass and run to gain 224 yards in the first half but added only added 86 yards in the second half.
The ultimate undoing of the team was thier successful drives in quarters one and two. Little did they know that things would unravel so poorly in the second half and really should have converted in the red zone. Their failure on all three trips near the end zone cost them the game. After the loss Osweiler took responsibility for the miscues in the red zone.
“The biggest thing is, as an offense, that it all starts and it stops with me. I have to find a way to get our offense into the end zone and scoring touchdowns. Anytime a defense holds a team to 15 points, I believe that you should win the football game. It’s your job as an offense and as a quarterback–I’ll take full responsibility for it, but it’s your job to not kick field goals and score touchdowns in the red area.”
Email Sam at sam@milehighsports.com and follow him on Twitter @SamCowhick.