The Oakland Raiders won their first game of the 2014 season on Thursday night with an upset victory over the Kansas City Chiefs, and they tried their best to blow it.
Let me preface this by saying the Raiders are 1-10 for a reason. Teams with winning records — or multiple wins, for that matter — don’t forget that they need to get back to the line of scrimmage after celebrating a sack on third down. That’s exactly what linebackers Sio Moore and Khalil Mack did on the final drive of the game.
The Raiders came up with a huge sack while leading 24-20 with less than a minute left. The Chiefs had no timeouts left, so the play put Oakland in a perfect position to finish Kansas City off. The problem is veteran Justin Tuck was forced to call a timeout and stop the clock because his teammates were 13 yards offsides behind the line of scrimmage.
Tuck was furious, and understandably so. Moore apologized after the game.
“I was so caught in the moment, that was an error I’ve got to make sure I clean up,” Moore said, via Pro Football Talk. “In another situation, in all seriousness, that can make the difference, and I’ve got to understand that. I do apologize for putting the guys in that situation because that could come up in another situation later. I can’t let my emotions get the best of me.”
Had the Raiders gone on to lose, we can only imagine the jokes that would be flying around for the remainder of the season. But give them credit for coming up with another big play on fourth down. If they hadn’t, Moore and Mack would have had to crawl into a hole and stay there.
GIF via Sports Pickle
