Jack Del Rio is no rookie head coach in the NFL.
This is his 10th season leading a team in the league, and he’s managed overall game decisions in 147 contests since he first took over the Jacksonville Jaguars in 2003. Plus, when all his experience comes into play – his years as a player and assistant coach – Del Rio at age 52 is about as seasoned as they come.
And yet, after Sunday’s 38-35 loss to the Pittsburgh Steelers, Del Rio was taking some of the blame for the defeat on decisions he made, particularly a choice at the end of the first half.
Points are precious, especially on the road against a team with an explosive offense, and Del Rio decided to be conservative and pass on an opportunity for at least three points at the end of the second quarter. Three points, of course, turned out to be huge.
With 29 seconds left before halftime – and in possession of three timeouts -- the Raiders had the ball at their own 20-yard line, trailing the Steelers 21-18.
Instead of allowing quarterback Derek Carr to try to work his way up the field and put strong-legged kicker Sebastian Janikowski in position to make a long field goal, Del Rio had Carr take a knee and let the clock run out, thinking that his team would get the next possession anyway in receiving the second-half kickoff.
During Monday’s news conference with Bay Area reporters, he said his decision turned out to be the wrong one.
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“As I sit here today, I kind of kick myself for not taking advantage of that,” Del Rio said. “I think there was an opportunity to do more there, to be more aggressive there. My feeling at the moment was that offensively, we hadn’t really thrown it really well in the first half. I just didn’t want to have exposure right there that might lead to a bad thing going in, but really, in hindsight, if I had that to do over again, I’d go ahead and take a couple of shots there and utilize our timeouts and play that aggressively.
“Again, that’s one of the things as I look back at yesterday, things that, hey, how could I be better? I felt like I could have been better in that moment.”
Certainly, the decision looked worse after the Raiders’ passing game came alive in the second half. Carr led his team on a pair of fourth-quarter touchdown drives to tie the game, and put the team in position for another TD but was intercepted in the end zone.
He finished with four TD passes and 301 yards.
Now that Carr has shown his head coach he’s developing into one of the NFL’s brightest young quarterbacks, Del Rio may allow himself to gamble a bit more in similar situations over the second half of this season.
The Raiders, 4-4, will host the 6-2 Minnesota Vikings Sunday (1:05 p.m. kickoff).
