A salmon-like leap over a hoard of ravenous Bears earned victory for the Oakland Raiders and put the rookie running back Josh Jacobs’s name up in lights.
Two first-half touchdowns – one from Jacobs – and a field goal had put the unfancied Raiders in the driving seat at half-time. The Chicago Bears recovered their poise in the second half to power their way to a 21-17 lead. With the clock into the final two minutes of the game, however, Jacobs picked up the ball at second and goal and sprang over the Chicago defensive line to secure victory.
The Raiders head coach, Jon Gruden, had brought his men to the UK on Monday. The coach said the main lesson he had taken from a humbling at the hands of the Miami Dolphins in London last year was that jet lag matters. The Bears, meanwhile only rocked up on Thursday, and if one side were sleepy at the start it was certainly the team from the NFC North.
The Bears earned just two first downs in the opening quarter to the Raiders’ seven and advanced just 46 yards (compared with the Raiders 132). There was no score during that period, but with the opening play of the second quarter the Raiders – the nominal ‘home team’ with their insignia flashing brightly on the ribbon screens around the stadium – got the lead their assertiveness deserved. Jacobs hit the end-zone from 12 yards, dancing right through the middle of the Bears defence, bringing an end to a 10-play, 90-yard drive.
Soon the team who had given up just five touchdowns in their first four games had given up two in five minutes. It began with a straightforwardly poor throw from the Bears stand-in quarterback Chase Daniels, intercepted in the centre of the field by the linebacker Nicholas Morrow. The ball now with the Raiders, Jacobs rushed twice more and fellow running back DeAndre Washington the same to bring the line of scrimmage to within three yards of the Bears end-zone. This time Derek Carr handed the vital play to Washington and the 26-year-old burst through on the right to score his first touchdown in two years. The score went to 17-0 thanks to a 41-yard field goal from Daniel Carlson.
Jacobs had joined the Raiders in the first-round of this year’s draft, a pick traded with the Bears as part of the move that saw Khalil Mack go in the opposite direction. One of the best pass-rushers in the NFL, Mack’s departure caused a lot of headscratching among Raiders fans. Mack himself had labelled this reunion a “grudge match”. But the linebacker was being nullified by the Raiders offence, the extra emphasis on stopping him perhaps made possible by the early exit from the match of the Bears’ titanic tight-end Akiem Hicks. But something needed to change for the ‘visiting’ team in the second half.
Change it did when Mack began by turning over a Raiders second down just 14 yards from their own goal-line. An incomplete pass from Daniels was followed by a holding call against Raiders safety Lamarcus Joyner and the Bears advanced closer. On second down Daniels handed the ball to running back David Montgomery who charged full bore into the Raiders defence only to be held up on the two-yard line. The next play, Daniels did the same again and this time Montgomery did the business.
After converting the extra-point, the Bears soon reduced the deficit further. The wide receiver Anthony Miller started the charge, stealing the ball from a Raiders defender and advancing 32 yards. From there Daniels took over. The quarterback had had a first half to forget but now he was in the groove and threw a four-yard pass left to right that was caught by a diving Allen Robinson to make it 14-17.
With under two minutes left in the quarter Tarik Cohen punted 71 yards downfield to give the Bears possession on the Raiders 16. Daniels stepped up and found Robinson again, this time with a high looping pass to the right-hand corner of the end-zone, and the Bears were up 20-17, their first lead of the match.
The Raiders tried to rally and at the start of the fourth quarter, and thought they had claimed their third touchdown only for Trevor Davis to have the ball punched out of his hands by Sherrick McManis as he collapsed for the line, and the Bears turned play over. The Bears also lucked out when an intercepted pass was ruled out for a late foul on Daniels (roughing the passer). But after escaping from a failed fake punt on their own 10-yard line the Raiders found the gumption to go once more, and give the ball to Jacobs. He carried the ball twice in the buildup to his decisive touchdown, part of 123 yards in total, before finding height as well as distance to secure victory.
The Raiders tried to rally and, at the start of the fourth quarter, thought they had claimed their third touchdown only for Trevor Davis to have the ball punched out of his hands by Sherrick McManis as he collapsed for the line, and the Bears turned play over. The Bears also lucked out when an intercepted pass was ruled out for a late foul on Daniels (roughing the passer).
But after escaping from a failed fake punt on their own 10-yard line the Raiders got one more chance courtesy of another bad throw from Daniels. The turnover meant one thing: get the ball to Jacobs and he carried twice in the buildup to his decisive touchdown, part of 123 yards in total, before finding height as well as distance to secure victory.
