PHILADELPHIA — They play the theme from “Rocky” before kickoff at every Philadelphia Eagles game to help fire up the crowd at Lincoln Financial Field, which, in all honesty, doesn’t need any additional encouragement.
But if you remember the original movie, Rocky takes out a bunch of fighters en route to getting a title shot against Apollo Creed. Watching the Raiders try to compete with the Eagles Sunday was like watching one of the pugs Rocky beat into submission.
Philadelphia built a 17-0 halftime lead and cruised to a 31-0 win as the Raiders had a tough day offensively and defensively. But you can’t blame Geno Smith this time. He wasn’t available as he was out with a shoulder injury.
Instead, it was Kenny Pickett who was entrusted to get things done with the offense. And he struggled just as mightily. It’s what happens when you can’t run the ball on a cold December day — it was 17 degrees at kickoff.
The Raiders rushed for just 46 yards and two first downs on the ground against an Eagles defense that came into Sunday ranked 26th in the NFL in rushing (allowing 132 yards per game) going into Sunday. You can add this one to the long list of bad losses suffered by the Silver and Black this year.
“I don’t sense that at all,” Raiders coach Pete Carroll said when asked after the game if his team had reached its breaking point. “I think we got beat. This is a very good team (in Philadelphia) on both sides of the ball and they really took it to us. They were able to do what they needed to do.
“We couldn’t make it hard on them. I just think we got whipped by a really good football team.”
Pickett, who was a member of the Eagles’ Super Bowl championship team a year ago and was signed by the Raiders after Aidan O’Connell fractured his right wrist in the final preseason game against Arizona back in late August, had a tough time. He was under duress most of the afternoon, held the ball too long too often, was sacked four times and he either underthrew receivers or had a few dropped when he was on target.
A third-quarter interception during a somewhat promising Raiders drive was yet another indignity suffered by Pickett and the offense. He would finish with just 64 yards through the air on 15-of-25 passing along with the one interception.
In other words, it looked a lot like Geno.
“It’s the NFL. It’s the ultimate team game,” Pickett said. “I can’t pinpoint it on any one thing. We couldn’t extend the field enough and we needed to stay on the field longer and try to get a rhythm.”
For rookie running back Ashton Jeanty, it was another tough week in what has been a tough first season in the NFL. Sunday, he was limited to just 30 yards on eight carries.
“We just couldn’t get going and we couldn’t convert on third down,” he said. “We just need to execute well enough. That’s all it came down to.”
At 10-0 in the second quarter, the deficit appeared insurmountable. And when Saquon Barkley scored from the Raiders’ 2 with 1:57 left before the half to make it 17-0, it was pretty much over.
The good news? The snow that had blanketed the Linc early Sunday morning was mostly gone so the Raiders couldn’t get pelted with snowballs en route to their locker room.
On the flip side, Jalen Hurts looked like the Super Bowl quarterback from a year ago instead of the guy who had just lost three straight games and had drawn the ire of Eagles fans everywhere. But when you’re able to run the ball, make enough headway throwing the ball and finish off drives, you have a pretty good chance to achieve success.
Hurts threw for 175 yards on 12-of-15 passing and three touchdowns, ran for 39 more and executed the offensive game plan to near perfection. He didn’t force things and it resulted in a frustrating afternoon for the Las Vegas defense which was unable to contain anything.
It’s beyond playing for pride at this point. Jobs in the future are at stake and that includes the head coach, who came back from a year’s hiatus to return to the NFL in the hopes of resurrecting the success he had in Seattle with the Seahawks, and before that, at USC but has failed miserably in his quest thus far in Las Vegas.
“These guys are working their asses off,” Carroll said of the 2-12 Raiders, who travel to Houston next week to take on the Texans. “We’re still working hard. We’re still practicing hard. Guys are giving good effort. They’re fighting their tails off. They’re doing all we’re asking of them.”
Jeanty said: “You have to keep going. No matter how the season has been, we’re still playing for something. That was an embarrassing performance by us today. We’re still losing. The breaking point will be getting a win and playing better than we did today.”