Oakland Raiders v Houston Texans: A Few Last Minute Keys To A Wild Card Win

Temper, Temper, Temper

Penalties have been an Achilles Heel for this team all season long. They’ve had a few games here and there where they’ve done a better job of avoiding the stupid mistakes and emotional outbursts that often draw the yellow flags, but for the most part, they’ve been a highly undisciplined group all season.

The race for the NFL’s “Penalty King” — a rather dubious award – was close for a while. The Raiders jockeyed for the top spot with a couple of teams throughout the season. But by the close of week 17 – and a horrible 13 flag performance against Denver – the Raiders sealed up the title. By a wide margin.

For the year, Oakland had 147 penalties accepted. 147. And they gave up 1,247 yards of field position because of it. Think about that for a second – that’s more than twelve football fields in penalty yards! It could have been much worse though, as they did have an additional 20 penalties declined.

Against Denver, the Raiders were flagged 13 times for 125 yards. And it was clear that a lot of that penalty yardage was because of the team’s frustration. Penalties taken out of anger in the heat of the moment. In that game, the Raiders had three unnecessary roughness flag and two face masks – the 15 yard variety.

Those five penalties alone accounted for 75 of Oakland’s 125 yards in penalties. And those were all penalties drawn out of anger and frustration. In other words – stupid penalties. Really stupid penalties. If that game had been close, that could have had a big role in deciding the outcome.

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The Raiders absolutely have to play smarter, more disciplined football today. With so much hamstringing this team as it is, they can’t afford to take stupid penalties and give up valuable real estate. This team needs to keep its cool, walk away, and don’t engage in the heat of the moment. They have to be smart and not let themselves get baited into taking a critical – and idiotic – penalty. Again.

This team has enough stacked up against it already – the last thing they can afford is to repeatedly shoot themselves in the foot.