Raiders fall to Dolphins 15-17
The Oakland Raiders lost a hard fought game Sunday in Miami, falling to the Dolphins 15 to 17. The fourth straight loss for the Raiders sends them to 2-8, while the resurgent Dolphins are now standing at 6-4. The Raiders travel to Denver to play the Broncos at Invesco Field Sunday. With 38 seconds left in the game, rookie Miami kicker Dan Carpenter nailed a 38 yard field goal to give the Dolphins the go-ahead points and the win. Oakland has now gone 13 consecutive quarters without scoring an offensive touchdown.
With no offensive touchdown to speak of, the Raiders scored on a 93 yard punt return from Johnnie Lee Higgins with 4:30 left to play to give Oakland their first lead. Dolphin QB Chad Pennington then moved his team in 10 plays, including a 7 yard pass on 4th & 5 to Ted Ginn Jr to keep the drive alive. Carpenter then nailed the game winning 38 yard field goal shortly afterwards to give Miami the win. Coach Tom Cable said of the game “This is good for us. It hurts because we lost, but we are getting closer. We’ve just got to keep pounding away, and we will get a break one of these days.”
Oakland generated only 2 field goals on offense, and scored a safety on Jay Richardson’s sack of Pennington in the end zone. QB JaMarcusRussell returned after missing last weeks game with a knee injury, and went 15 for 22 for 156 yards. Miami sacked Russell 6 times. Raider rookie RB Darren McFadden played for the first time in 4 games after sitting out with turf toe. He carried 3 times for 13 yards as the Raiders totaled only 70 yards rushing.
Running back Justin Fargus said ” You can’t have an offense that doesn’t score points. We have to pick up our side of it.” The Raiders went 2 for 11 on third downs and were out gained382 yards to 186. But, they nearly pulled out the victory with Higgins punt return that put them ahead 15-14. One bright spot for the Raiders continues to be the play of punter Shane Lechler, who averaged 52.7 yards on six punts with 4 inside the 20 yard line.
Lets hope that with Russell and Mcfadden apparently back to health, the Raiders can generate some kind of offensive performance against the Broncos Sunday in Denver.
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This post has one comment
November 18th, 2008 at 6:13 pm
Close? Cable thinks we’re getting close? I understand that coaches need ot find th epositive in things, but this offense (and I can’t believe I’m gong to say this) is worse than the Walsh bed-and-breakfast offense. Most fans wonder if their team will score every time they start a drive. Raiders fans wonder if we’ll get a single first down. And sadly, more often that not, we don’t. This team is not close to anything positive. The offense is an absolute embarrassment. And frankly, so is this franchise, which I’ve loved and followed for over 30 years now.