One oddity in this week’s playoff clinching scenarios is that the Raiders and Chargers could both advance to the postseason with a Sunday night tie if the Colts lose to the Jaguars on Sunday afternoon.
It’s not one that the Raiders say they’re going to spend too much time pondering. Interim head coach Rich Bisaccia said “we’re going to look to put our best foot forward” and defensive end Maxx Crosby said he’ll be paying attention to the Colts result, but that “we want to win this game” regardless of other results.
Quarterback Derek Carr is going to take a different approach when it comes to scoreboard watching, but has the same view on playing to win the game.
“Someone said we could just take knees and tie if that’s the scenario,” Carr said, via Paul Gutierrez of ESPN.com. “I was like, ‘Well, that sounds good to you, but I don’t want to tie these guys either.’ To me, it will be full focus on beating the Chargers, and I’m pretty confident that’s how our whole team feels, no matter what. You know, they beat us last time. We kind of just want to play this game.”
The Colts are 15-point favorites over the Jaguars, so a loss would be a surprising outcome even though they have not won in Jacksonville since 2014. As long as they hold serve, no one will be playing to tie the final game on the regular season schedule.