Around the AFC West, Week 5: Kansas City Chiefs surge ahead in the AFC West
By Ellen Mathis
Oakland Raiders
The Oakland Raiders played a crazy game in Oakland against the Cleveland Browns on Sunday. This game featured Baker Mayfield’s first career start, weird roughing the passer calls, and Jon Gruden’s first win since 2008. The day started off with Mayfield throwing his first complete pass to… the Raiders! A pick six!
What followed was a wild back and forth between the Browns and Raiders. In the fourth quarter, with 30 seconds left on the clock, the Raiders were down by eight. Derek Carr drove the raiders down on six plays culminating in a 7-yard touchdown pass to Jared Cook. The Raiders then converted a two-point conversion to Jordy Nelson tying the game at 42-42.
In overtime, the Raiders ended up kicking a 29 yard field goal to seal the win. This game featured missed field goals as well. Oakland’s rookie kicker Matt McCrane missed two field goals, one towards the beginning of the game and one in overtime. Ultimately, when it mattered the most, he hit the game winner.
Carr had a great outing throwing for 4 touchdowns and 437 yards. Marshawn Lynch, Amari Cooper and Jared Cook all went over 100 yards. The Raiders had, in each of the previous three games, blown a fourth quarter lead, and it looked like that was going to happen again.
The Raiders, however, were able to pull this one out. The reffing was questionable in this game. Lynch, on one occasion, was hurt by an early whistle that, had it not been blown, would have given him a 75-yard touchdown run. The play was ruled dead. The Browns also got a bad call in the fourth quarter when they sacked Derek Carr. The refs used the lovely forward progress call (my eye still twitches in anger) which negated a fumble recovery that could have resulted in a touchdown. Regardless, the Raiders came out on top and are now 1-3.
Donald Penn left in the second half with a leg injury and Kelechi Osemele also left with an injury. The Raiders take on divisional rival Chargers on Sunday. This is an important game to bring them even with the Chargers. Game time is 3:05 p.m. in L.A.