For those who did not see it, the game came down to the Raiders Final possession. They were 6 points down and so needed a touchdown + the extra point ( conversion ) to win it. They began with the ball on their own 15 and so had 85 metres to cover in 2 mins 24 secs with one timeout remaining. Progress was anything but smooth and they even had to convert on 4th down to keep the drive alive.
They got the ball down to the Kansas City 29 yard line and had 23 seconds remaining. Whilst the first part of the drive was exciting. the remainder was bordering on the insane. From the KC 29 Yard line ( Raider Quarterback ) Derek Carr threw the ball to Jared Cook, who secured the catch and fell backwards into the end zone. The officials on the field awarded the score, but the play was reviewed ( all scoring plays in the NFL are reviewed ) and Cook was adjudged to have been " down " at the half yard line.
On the next play Carr again threw for a " score " but this was disallowed due to a ( dodgy ) penalty. Not only did this wipe off the score, but the penalty incurred a loss of 10 yards and so the ball was placed just outside the 10.
By now there were 3 seconds left and everyone though this would be the last play. Once again the ball was thrown to the end zone, but this time Jared Cook dropped it. Prior to the pass being thrown however Cook was illegally held and a penalty was awarded against KC. At this point the clock was showing Zero, but as with both codes of Rugby, an NFL game cannot end on a defensive penalty, so the penalty yardage was marked off and the Raiders had another shot, this time from the 5 yard line.
Yet another pass was launched into the end zone where this time Cordarrelle Patterson caught the ball, but could not get both feet in bounds and so the pass was ruled incomplete. Once again the game looked over, but once again a penalty was awarded against KC again for holding. After the penalty yardage was marked off the Raiders had the ball just inside the 3 yard line and had their 5th shot at gaining the tying touchdown.
This time Derek Carr rolled left and found Michael Crabtree for the score. No penalty flags were thrown and the automatic review found nothing wrong and so the scores were tied at 30.
In all the excitement, it was easy to forget that the Raiders still needed the extra point to win it. Thankfully for all our nerves this sailed over for a vital Raider win.
The last 5 plays were manic and the last 23 seconds of playing time actually accounted for over 20 minutes of real time. Technically the Raiders won it twice, then lost it twice, before finally securing the " W "
