The Oakland Raiders took down the Kansas City Chiefs 31-30 on Thursday Night Football, and the final drive involved a crazy sequence of plays (and penalties). After the game ended, CBS/NFL Network play-by-play man Jim Nantz told Tony Romo how it may only be Romo’s ninth game as a color commentator, but Romo “will never see a last sequence of plays like you saw here tonight.”
So let’s get to the key plays of this drive with a video-by-video breakdown.
Trailing, 30-24 with under two minutes left, Derek Carr hit Amari Cooper for a 39-yard pass on 2nd-and-20 (after an offensive pass interference call).
On 4th-and-11, Carr completed a 13-yard pass to tight end Jared Cook with 30 seconds left.
Two plays later, things really started to get crazy.
Carr connected with Cook for a 29-yard touchdown pass, or so it appeared.
But replays showed that Cook was down just short of the goal line, and this also resulted in a 10-second runoff.
With eight seconds on the clock, Carr threw a fade pass to Michael Crabtree for a game-winning touchdown. Or not! Crabtree was called for offensive pass interference.
That gave the Raiders 1st-and-goal at the 10-yard line, and Carr threw a pass incomplete to Cook in the end zone. Game over, Chiefs win. Or not! The Chiefs were called for defensive holding.
So then it was 1st-and-goal at the five-yard line with no time left, and that resulted in another defensive holding!
Finally, a play that didn’t result in a flag as Carr found Crabtree in the end zone to tie the game.
And Raiders kicker Giorgio Tavecchio barely made the extra point to give the Raiders a wacky win.
https://twitter.com/nrudolph151/status/921224077750149120
So the game featured four plays that appeared to be the final play, and almost ended up going into overtime.
At the end of the day, it’s a massive win for the Raiders to get to 3-4 and move within two games of the 5-2 Chiefs in the AFC West. Oakland entered this season as the sexy Super Bowl pick, but a loss in this game would’ve made their playoff chances slim.
[CBS/NFL Network]
