Graney: Raiders need to be much better to make playoffs

The football sailed through a chilly Cleveland evening on Monday and split the uprights, keeping alive playoff hopes for a Raiders team that has known the postseason just once in 19 years.

Daniel Carlson, a placekicker who is as consistent and reliable a player as the Raiders have, made good from 48 yards.

It allowed the Raiders to escape with a 16-14 win against the Browns, a team that I’m pretty sure had a few guys who normally hawk beer playing along the offensive line.

You don’t argue with wins in the NFL. You really don’t argue with them on the road this late in a season. But if a playoff berth depends on the Raiders winning out — home to the Broncos, at Indianapolis, home to the Chargers — the team seen Monday can’t accomplish such a goal. podcast

It’s not good enough.

I suppose it could be. Week-to-week league, is right. The side that barely survived a Browns team missing 18 players (including eight starters, the punter and head coach) to COVID-19 protocols could suddenly become one deserving of living into January.

If so, things need to be so much better.

“We’re 7-7 and what our record says we are,” said defensive end Maxx Crosby. “This is just one win, but it’s a big road game that we knew we had to win. We found a way.”

They did. Barely. I understood to a point the Raiders’ strategy. Control the clock. Move the chains. Take few chances against a Cleveland team being led by a third-string quarterback in Nick Mullens and several refugees from the practice squad.

But between several dropped passes and holding call after holding call, the Raiders kept a reeling Browns side in the game.

Fact: If the Raiders don’t receive a competent performance from their defense, this ends in a horrible loss. Then any playoff talk would have been replaced with that of getting on with the chore of cleaning house.

A new mindset

Give the Raiders credit for being able to reset after it was announced the game was being moved from Saturday to Monday due to Cleveland’s issue with COVID. The Raiders obviously weren’t happy with the switch — the tweets from players alone were worthy of some afternoon reading — but they responded in a positive manner. They won the darn game.

I’m still wondering who it was that told the team to “stand down” before buses departed to the airport Friday, hoping only it was a Jack Nicholson lookalike straight from “A Few Good Men.”

“My teammates said things I agree with, but at the end of the day, life is going to throw you curveballs,” said Raiders quarterback Derek Carr. “I’m going to show up when they let us play and we’ll play. Whether I agree or don’t agree, I don’t think it matters.

“We have to play at some point and after the game, we’re going to be standing there and we either won or lost.”

The latter appeared a good bet when Carr threw deep to Zay Jones with under three minutes remaining and the Raiders chasing a 14-13 deficit. The pass was intercepted and downed at the Raiders’ 29 with 2:47 remaining.

But here came the defense, offering one more stop and handing Carr a second life.

He drove the Raiders to the Cleveland 30. Then the consistent and reliable guy trotted out.

There is life

“Our team has a great belief in Daniel,” interim head coach Rich Bisaccia said. “They see how he works. We all thought we had a good chance to go out there and kick a 48-yarder.”

They did. Carlson made it.

There is still life in the pursuit of a playoff berth.

They just need to play a whole lot better when facing a team where the beer-hawking guy is not at tackle.

The Raiders of Monday can’t win out.

Which doesn’t mean they won’t.

Ed Graney is a Sigma Delta Chi Award winner for sports column writing and can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618. He can be heard on “The Press Box,” ESPN Radio 100.9 FM and 1100 AM, from 7 a.m. to 10 a.m. Monday through Friday. Follow @edgraney on Twitter.