Josh McDaniels, Raiders joined chorus of stunned participants following Patriots’ embarrassing loss in Vegas

It’s been an eventful year for Josh McDaniels, Derek Carr and a Raiders team that was expected to dole out some misery to opposing defenses in 2022.

Despite McDaniels’ pedigree as an effective and inventive offensive conductor and the abundance of weapons in Carr’s arsenal in Davante Adams, Darren Waller, Hunter Renfrow, Josh Jacobs and others, it’s largely been an underwhelming campaign for the 6-8 Raiders — with that sub-.500 showing a direct result of multiple collapses and logic-defying lapses in execution.

Aside from a 24-0 blowout against the Saints back on Oct. 30, Las Vegas’ other seven losses found the Raiders on the wrong side of the scoreboard by a COMBINED 27 points — including two back-breaking, one-point losses to both the Chiefs and Rams.

And when you add in the manner in which some of those losses were handed out — such as Los Angeles plucking Baker Mayfield off the scrap heap and orchestrating a comeback win back on Dec. 8 — this has been a year in which the Raiders have just about seen it all when it comes to on-field futility. 

Well, at least until Sunday afternoon. And for once, it was McDaniels, Carr and the Raiders who could relish another team’s pratfalls in crunch time. 

 “If you've been with the Raiders for any amount of time, we've seen our fair share of things happen, right,” Carr said following Las Vegas’ miraculous win over New England on Sunday. “But I have not seen that one.”

In a game where the Raiders saw a 14-point halftime lead dissipate and New England’s defense routinely kept Vegas’ high-powered offense in check, all of those second guesses and pained musings fell to the wayside for McDaniels and Co. as soon as Jakobi Meyers lofted that backward lateral to Mac Jones with 0:00 left on the clock — handing the home team the victory and potentially putting the final nail in the coffin of a dysfunctional season for the Patriots. 

“Don't get tackled by the quarterback,” McDaniels said of his initial reaction as soon as Chandler Jones snatched Meyers’ ill-advised volley out of the air. “I mean, literally I just was thinking - I don't know what the word would be, but once Rhamondre pitched the ball to Jakobi, I figured we'd probably just tackle whoever had it and then that would be it, and we'd go to overtime. And then, when he lateraled the ball, I had no idea.

“It didn't seem like a lateral play to me when they handed the ball off to the back. So, when they handed it to the back, I thought, ‘Okay, tackle him and go to overtime.’ And then when I saw the ball up in the air and then I saw Chandler underneath it, I’m thinking, ‘Oh my god, we might have a chance at this.’ And then when he caught it, I saw Mac Jones was back there, and just hoping that he could avoid whatever effort Mac had to tackle him and then hopefully had enough juice left in his body to get to the end-zone."

Of course, Mac Jones offering any form of tangible resistance in front of 6-foot-5 Chandler Jones wasn’t going to manifest itself — with the Vegas defensive end trucking over the Pats QB like Marshawn Lynch barrelling over a Pop Warner player en route to a 48-yard, game-ending score. 

For as much as postgame pressers in the NFL are often an easy avenue for teams (and especially coaches) to offer up tired cliches and rehearsed garble centered on their own roster — such a script was torn up for most of Sunday’s media musings, with Carr and Co. joining the chorus of thousands operating with stunned disbelief in how such a win fell right in their lap.

“They’re sitting there, trying to run out the clock, trying to go to overtime,” Carr said. “They break some tackles, they get down there, and it's hard as a competitor, too; because you're down there now, they start tossing it around, you get it, and it's hard to just sit down on it -- give up on the play. I get that as a competitor. It's tough. 

“That's a tough thing to do, especially if that's not a thing that's talked about, right? You're like, 'Okay, this is what we're doing.' Crazy he threw it back, Chandler Jones caught it, and in my brain, I was like, 'Pitch it.' I don't know Chandler's 40 time, but when you stiff arm, and it goes down a little bit. But he made it to the end zone, it was an unbelievable play. And I'm glad we had one go our way that way.”

It’s been far from an ideal season for McDaniels so far out in the Vegas desert, especially given both the talent present on his roster and the expectations placed upon the organization. 

And yet, for all of the ups-and-downs present on his own ship, Sunday’s victory stood as a stark reminder of just how much things have gone awry at his previous helm — with a once well-oiled Patriots machine sputtering with incompetence, and a promising New England offensive unit now left rudderless in the final stages of this underwhelming campaign. 

“It's really not about me,” McDaniels said of improving to 2-0 in head-to-head matchups against Bill Belichick. “It's really about our team, obviously. That team over there and that organization, I mean, they've been the standard for a long time. Our team knew the type of challenge this was going to be, we knew they would be disciplined. We knew they would be competitive, physical, tough and play hard in all three phases on every down, and that's what we got from them. I thought they really did a good job of – they had some adversity early in the game. 

“We blocked the punt, we scored right before the half, and then they were able to sustain the momentum they created there at the beginning of the third quarter and eventually take the lead. I obviously give Bill a ton of credit for some of the adjustments that he made in the game and got them back in it and ahead. And just grateful for the effort and performance of our team here down the stretch."

The day after, Belichick doesn't clear up much

Here's the transcript of Bill Belichick with the media from this morning, via Patriots Media Relations:

Q: I wanted to ask about the red zone sequence at the start of the second quarter. You had the two timeouts that were taken. What is happening that is contributing to the plays not getting in on time, if that's the reason that the timeouts are being taken there?

BB: It's a combination of things that we obviously need to do better.

Q: On that red zone sequence you guys are in the shotgun for first, second and third down. When you look at that, did you see that those plays with better execution, you were happy with those play calls? I guess that's the first part and the second part is just being in the shotgun in that situation versus under center. What do you see the benefit to that?

BB: Well, there's benefits to both. But it's really a longer conversation than that. But without Hunter [Henry] there, that wasn't where we had normally would've been. But that's what it was. We did what we thought was best at the time, given the circumstances and maybe there's other options that we'll have in the future. We'll see.

Q: Big picture wise, how do you grow as a team from a loss like that? Obviously, everyone is deflated after something like that. But how do you as a coach try to turn this into a positive?

BB: Follow the same process we always follow. Correct the mistakes, identify things we need to keep doing well and move on and get ready for Cincinnati.

Q: Obviously you always follow that process, but do you feel like after a loss like that anything is different? Or you need to just stick with what you have done traditionally?

BB: Well, every game is different. Every week's different. So yeah, everything's different but the general process is the same.

Q: You mentioned mistakes, where do you see the mistakes coming from? Is it youth? Is it inexperience? Is it difficulty getting through to players? How do you summarize why the mistakes have been problematic?

BB: I've never coached in a game where you weren't coaching, making corrections and mistakes after the game on all levels, playing, coaching, everything, decision making, overall strategy, everything. That's a part of every game, every review. I've never coached in a game where you didn't have that. Then there are also things that you are positive that you look at that you want to try to build on. I think those elements occur in every game. I've never been in one that didn't have both.

Q: On the final play, obviously a lot of focus has been on Jakobi [Meyers], but I assume you want Rhamondre [Stevenson] to go down in that spot, is that fair?

BB: Obviously we don’t want the result that we had on that play, so just leave it at that.

Q: The passing offense generated just 112 yards. I think Mac Jones was 13-for-31. The Raiders had trouble defending the pass, I know stats are stats and every game is different, I was wondering what you attributed the low production from the passing game to?

BB: Yeah, again, we just have to do a better job. We’ve thrown the ball well. In other games our completion percentage has been different than that. That’s not the standard, but just in general, we just have to do a better job.

Q: And then the third-and-10, naked boot to Mac, is that a play designed to draw extra time off the clock or was there an idea that he might convert that?

BB: Yeah, I think we definitely had a chance to convert it. It’s a situational play that they’re playing for the run, kept the clock running, forced another timeout or keep the clock running, however you want to look at it. [Maxx] Crosby made a good play and they reacted to it. Throwing the ball on third-and-10 or run another running play, those are your options.

Q: I know I asked yesterday about the blocked punt and I’m curious just after watching it, if there’s anything else you can add just on what contributed to that? What’s the mechanics of what’s happening there that would have the ball snap when it didn’t seem like all the players were ready?

BB: Yeah, no. I don’t have anything to add Mike [Reiss].

Q: And then, we’ve talked a lot over the years on situational football, I know how much you value it and just seeing some of the mistakes the team is making in that area, I was curious what’s your level of concern just that the coaching message, there’s a disconnect, like it’s not getting through to the players to produce the results that you guys want in those situations?

BB: Yeah, it’s the first thing I said after the game yesterday is we have to play better situational football, play and coach better situational football.

Q: What can you do to make that happen, I guess?

BB: Work on it. It’s not going to happen by itself.