Welcome in to the full recap of the Raiders' week 17 divisional matchup vs. the Kansas City Chiefs where the Raiders had a chance to rally in the final seconds, but the Chiefs' defense had the number of the Raiders' offense all game long as they lose the regular season finale to the Chiefs 17-23.
Last week, the Raiders sent Charles Woodson out in Oakland with a bang. His final game in the NFL is surely a stinger. But let's not turn this attention to Woodson's final game ending on a bad note, this game was bad on all facets of the game offensively. The receivers couldn't get open, the O-line was getting beat around, the running game was held in check, offensive playcalling was soft, and Derek Carr was trying to do too much. The defense, despite giving up 21 points, hung around for the Raiders, created a pair of turnovers to make this a game, but it wasn't enough.
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Turnovers. I'm just going to rehash from what I said in the halftime post, they said Alex Smith barely turns the ball over during the Chiefs' winning streak. This game, the Raiders took it to heart and managed to generate two interceptions on Smith. T.J. Carrie had a pick, David Amerson, another pick for 6. There's no question the secondary needs to be addressed this offseason with Woodson gone and possibly other players getting cut (e.g. D.J. Hayden), but this game proved that Amerson is worth keeping around. He's not going to be a shutdown corner, but he's a decent football player. As much as Carrie had a down year due to injuries and shuffling from corner to safety, he's the Raiders' best player in the secondary. Props to them getting the picks and bringing the Raiders back in this game.
Khalil Mack, 10 tackles. There's no question Mack is a candidate for defensive player of the year. He rightfully deserves Pro Bowl honors and he's possibly moving up in the NFL's top 100 list. When he's not getting sacks, he's a tackling machine. Perhaps the highlight of this game was when he decided to do push ups after stopping a run. He could've had a couple of sacks here like last game, but I saw a lot of times he got held and the refs weren't calling them. Nonetheless, it was an impressive sophomore campaign for Mack, a huge leap from his rookie season.
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O-line. Okay, I know most of the Chiefs sacks were because Carr didn't want to throw the ball away. I'm not pro Carr, so I'll pinpoint that flaw from Carr's game. I think with all the injuries and shuffling, especially from that right side of the O-line, the lack of depth was showing. Obviously, J'Marcus Webb is not starter material, Feliciano still has a long way to go in polishing his game to be the Raiders' long-term answer at right guard. The negatives on the O-line doesn't just stem from the pass protection, but they couldn't open up holes for Murray to get the run game going. 6 sacks on Carr, it's a "bang-bang" argument that it was Carr not getting rid of the ball or the O-line just couldn't block.
Offensive playcalling. I would hate for the Raiders to do this to Carr by hiring a new offensive coordinator and give him a new playbook in three years, but Musgrave needs to go along with this conservative playcalling. He made a fool out of us during the stretch of the Chargers, Jets, and Steelers games, thinking that this offense is explosive, but it's clear that they've regressed. Defenses have a lot of game film on them and Musgrave doesn't make any adjustments. Too many quick screen passes, no elements of surprise, really predictable.
Conclusion
It sucks the Raiders couldn't send Charles Woodson off a winner in his final NFL game and it sucks they did not end the season on a high note. Even though the record is unsatisfactory, a 7-9 finish exceeded a lot of expectations. Although I had this team going at 8-8 or 9-7, the consensus was that this team was going 6-10 and the Raiders proved a lot of experts wrong. This team had a couple games slip away from them this season, but they were virtually in every game except the first game of the season vs. the Cincinnati Bengals. Though this loss against the Chiefs ended the season on a sour note, there's a lot of good things to look forward to for the future. Once again, I'll provide a "season in review" post to elaborate on the good and the bad this season, so stay tuned for that. Sorry if I'm a little slow getting these posts on time. I am currently battling a cold that I got on Friday, so not a good way to start off the New Year for me. But, thank you Raider Nation for following my coverage of the 2015 season for the Oakland Raiders. I'll see you guys later.
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