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In one of the most stunning endings to any NFL game in recent memory, the Patriots lost 30-24 to the Raiders on Sunday after Chandler Jones recovered a Jakobi Meyers lateral attempt on the final play of the game and ran it 48 yards for the walk-off touchdown.
The defeat sends the Patriots back to .500 at 7-7, and in the most demoralizing of ways:
Here are a few takeaways:It was a truly unbelievable final play.
Any discussion of Sunday’s Patriots-Raiders matchup begins and ends with Jones’s bizarre, unbelievable touchdown to win it.
The series of events that had to transpire for a Raiders touchdown to even occur — Rhamondre Stevenson not being tackled, Meyers (a former quarterback who the Patriots trust to throw the ball from time to time) making the inexplicably bad lateral, Mac Jones missing the tackle — seemed genuinely impossible.
It was only when the Raiders’ defensive end, a former Patriot, was running free into the end zone with no time remaining that the full weight of what had just happened fell on fans like a ton of bricks.
Given also the wider circumstances, with the Patriots fighting for a potential playoff berth, the collapse could have catastrophic implications.The game was tied because of a controversial call.
After blowing a two-touchdown lead — Las Vegas held a commanding 17-3 edge at halftime — the Raiders trailed 24-17 with just over two minutes remaining.
Raiders quarterback Derek Carr moved Las Vegas’s offense to the Patriots’ 30-yard line before finding Keelan Cole in the back of the end zone for a touchdown. The score put the Raiders an extra point away from tying the game.
Still, upon further review, Cole’s touchdown looked to have potentially been out of bounds. His left foot appeared to be on the line:
In the end, the ruling on the field (a Raiders touchdown) was upheld.
“We looked at every available angle and it was not clear and obvious that the foot was on the white,” said NFL officiating executive Walt Anderson in a postgame interview with ESPN’s Mike Reiss.
