Raiders only had 10 players on field during last play.

FREE RYAN17WAGNER !!!

DD

 

Yeah - I like Schaub; I think Schaub more often than not comes through, even in the "clutch". But for those who argue he's not "clutch" - I think that last play is a clinic; he looks panicked to me.

I have gone Zapruder on that film and it's interesting to dissect. First of all, I think OD is the primary target - he is lined up wide, top of screen and slants, JJ behind him. He is open but if you pause at :08, you can clearly see big #79 (is that Henderson?) extended. It would have been bat-down #8 (but also left time for another play).

Schaub then tucks - but all he really has to do is step-up; instead, he runs. And while it DID look like he had miles of open space, the safety smartly - and very, very quickly - eats up that space. But now he's on the run, rather than being set and that changes the dynamic considerably, narrows his options, etc. Bad, bad decision.

Schaub sees the safety and pump fakes, right at the exact moment JJ is most wide open. Not a good move for two reasons: 1) as mentioned - JJ is open; 2) by pump-faking, he brings the ball back down to his hip - he's not ready to fire again. That's huge because on a play like that, a WR is going to be open in a flash and you need to be ready. Brees, I guarnatee you, has that ball cocked and ready.

And, I'm sorry DonkeyMagic - but he is staring directly at the safety because then he makes the inexplicable, unneccesary decision to move laterally, parallel to the goal line and away from the safety. Dumb because now he's running the opposite direction of his only available receiver.

Also dumb: if you watch the replay from the end zone perspective, Walter is dead-streaking toward JJ and suddenly *stops*. Had he kept going, he could have filled the sapce the safety left and given Schaub a second (and hand/smarts/experience-wise, a better) option.

At that point, it's just a combination of bad luck - JJ breaks off his route, Walter sits and Schaub throws a duck (seriously, it looks like he half-armed it; weird. I guess he was trying to put some touch on it but...)

If you want to elite, blah, blah - Aaron Rodgers runs it in; Brady steps-up but stops, giving himself space to scan the area. The key is to give your WRs time to find space. Running accelerates everything.

 

I think your take here is fairly spot-on, though my conclusions are a little different. I think he's flushed to the left - he can't go right given the pocket - and sees a ton of daylight and decides to run.

THIS is his problem, and THIS is where someone like Brees would have just thrown the ball away.

Once he decides to run, the free space is quickly eaten up, and given his speed, the time on the clock, his inability to get out of bounds in time, etc, etc, he tries to do the pump fake but it doesn't work. Moreover, he hadn't noticed JJ at that time anyway, open or not. Matt was thinking run all the way.

He did panic when that option went away. He should have then thrown the ball away. Maybe he thought there just wasn't enough time left. it was close. the ball was intercepted with 2 seconds left. he thought this was his only chance. so he threw it out there.

in his defense, as many (myself included) have pointed out, he threw at a receiver who had a defender on his back, and was "open" in that regards, whom he certainly didn't expect to make a move that was stumble backwards.

so perhaps bad chemistry, but clearly JJ is running some stupid stupid stuff out there, and add in his play the rest of the game, and the real question becomes why he's out there in the first place. Should have thrown another tight end out there, lord knows we've got to have some useful 3 tight end sets. our tight ends seem to have great hands and run great routes anyway.

 

I'm aware the outcome won't change. But it's still "fun" to talk about the team, regardless of the topic.