OAKLAND -- Raiders coach Jon Gruden seemed like he’d been waiting all year for a game like Sunday’s, in which a late comeback was preserved because the Coliseum grabbed Pittsburgh Steelers kicker Chris Boswell's leg so that Gruden could run to the Black Hole and not worry about getting clocked.
But it all came true for him in this long-ago-ruined season, in an improbable 24-21 win over the Spectre Of Ben Roethlisberger that (a) gave the Raiders their third win and (b) dropped them to third in the race for the No. 1 draft choice, if that’s the sort of thing that lifts your kite.
But that last one’s a problem for Jon Gruden the general manager. Jon Gruden the coach had a hell of a good time Sunday.
He got to rave about quarterback Derek Carr without qualifications, and declare Jared Cook the team’s MVP. He got to thank the fans who had been mean-mouthing him since the Khalil Mack trade (and without referencing the equally disastrous Amari Cooper trade), and to talk about all the physical adversity his team had to overcome to beat the Steelers and how much character it showed in doing so.
He got to complain about the 13 penalties that nearly ruined the Raiders, and he even got to bitch about the review process that worked against him two more times without crossing the line to be fined.
Hell, for Jon Gruden the coach, it was Christmas in ... well, Advent, I guess.
But of course there also was the matter of the CBSSports.com report that claimed general manager Reggie McKenzie was sure to be ex-general manager Reggie McKenzie, and it was at that moment that his mood soured.
“No comment on that,” Gruden said with an expression of purest sour, “We’re gonna bring this team back, we’re gonna bring the Raiders back. That’s all I’ll say.”
But then he switched back to coach mode to hail Roethlisberger, who came from the locker room after a late second–quarter hit to drive the Steelers down the field twice in the final three minutes to set up a 40-yard Boswell field-goal try that aborted itself when Boswell’s plant foot slipped on the always-forgiving Coliseum turf.
It brought back for Gruden all those happy memories of when the Coliseum could be a force for good and when the Raiders were good enough to benefit from it. It was a nostalgic romp through his first spin through Oakland, and with so few wins and so little time remaining until that disappears for good, Gruden let himself be enraptured by the good old days relived.
Indeed, this can be said to have been the Raiders’ finest hour this year, given the limited choice of other candidates. Plus, nearly losing the game on a hook-and-ladder from James Washington to JuJu Smith-Schuster on the game’s last play from scrimmage that set up the Boswell try gave everyone a good scare to make the ending all the better.
Now given the way the day began and the way the season has deteriorated, it isn’t like this game will become a turning point. The Raiders haven’t even finished the teardown that must be completed before the rebuild. Times are hard here, and they’re going to stay hard until the team leaves, almost certainly after the 2019 season (nobody is buying the threatened Oakland lawsuit story any more).
But little victories matter when there are so few of them, and beating the team that bedeviled them during the ‘70s worked for the old-timers in the audience, as much as seeing Carr look like a creditable quarterback worked for the newbies.
But Gruden did remind everyone, “Hey, we’re 2-10 (well, 3-10 now),” so this is not a watershed moment in club history unless the draft pick they would have gotten by losing turns into a game-changer the way Mack has in Chicago and Cooper has in Dallas.
This was just a feel-good moment for a guy and a team that badly needed one. It changes nothing about the bigger picture any more than the 49ers surviving a scare from the Denver Broncos changes the 49ers’ future, but it was a blessed relief from the drabness of two lousy years that seem like they will never end.
Or, that until Sunday looked like they could ever be repaired.
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