Raiders head coach Josh McDaniels was faced with a decision on fourth-and-4 from the Steelers’ 8-yard-line with just over two minutes left in Sunday night’s game.
The Steelers led 23-15 and the Raiders had all three timeouts, so the Raiders had the option to kick a field goal or go for a touchdown. McDaniels opted to kick and cut the Pittsburgh lead to five points with the hope that their defense would get them the ball back quickly.
That did not happen as the Steelers converted a first down and then punted the ball to the Raiders after three more plays. The Raiders took over with 12 seconds to go from their own 15-yard-line and Jimmy Garoppolo threw an interception on the next play. After the game, McDaniels was asked if the field goal attempt was a sign he lacked confidence in the offense.
“You’re going to need another possession anyway, you know what I mean?” McDaniels said, via Paul Gutierrez of ESPN.com. “So, it is not a lack of confidence. . . . I don’t know, I mean, we kicked one earlier in that sequence . . . and then we’re fortunate enough to get a penalty on that field goal and then got down there. I mean, it is what it is. Like I said, you can go either way with those, and I did have confidence that we were playing well enough defensively and would have an opportunity to maybe get the ball back with two minutes to go and have an opportunity to go down there and take the lead.”
McDaniels’ reference to the penalty on a field goal came on a kick with 3:15 left in the game that the Raiders took off the board after a leverage penalty on the Steelers. ESPN analytics considered it a toss up to kick or go for the first down at that point and various models said the Raiders had a better chance of winning if they had gone for it instead of kicking the second time around.
The Raiders went the other way and they’re 1-2 this morning.