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Crashing down Savvy Raiders too much for wunderkind PenningtonPosted: Sunday January 12, 2003 11:36 PMUpdated: Monday January 13, 2003 12:11 AM
OAKLAND, Calif. -- By the end, Chad Pennington's shoulder pads were poking out from his jersey, his mouth was agape, and he looked every bit like a 19-year-old kid. Which, really, isn't too far off the mark. By the time the Oakland Raiders finished with Pennington on Sunday, he was beaten up, beaten down and beaten into a green-and-white blob in the unforgiving turf at Network Associates Coliseum. He was sacked four times and hit in the teeth a heck of a lot more than that. He was hurried and confused. He fumbled. He was picked off twice, which for Pennington is like hitting a kind of reverse lottery. By the time it was over Sunday, Pennington's passes were desperate-looking and headed, basically, nowhere. And neither were his New York Jets, not after a 30-10 pasting at the hands of the Raiders. "It's frustrating for me," he said. "It wasn't nobody's fault but mine." The surprising emergence of Pennington this season took the surprising Jets this far, into Sunday's NFL Divisional game, but the surprises ended under the pressure of an unforgiving Raiders defense. From the start, the league's top-rated passer found the pass rush a little too bothersome, found the Raiders' cornerbacks a little too aggressive to his liking. The kid from Marshall, who pulled the Jets' starting job away from Vinny Testaverde earlier this season, simply could not solve the Raiders' defense. When his receivers started slipping all over the turf, when his own passes started sailing over their heads, it was clear that Pennington's run was to come to an end in the noise and black of Oakland's home field. "He threw the same passes he threw last week," said Raiders cornerback Terrance Shaw, pointing to the 41-0 whitewashing the Jets laid on the Indianapolis Colts in the wild-card round. "But we're different. We don't play catch." Pennington had outplayed Peyton Manning, Brett Favre and Tom Brady in the past three weeks, had helped the Jets put up at least 30 points in each of those games, but he completed only 21 of his 47 passes Sunday. He threw for only 183 yards. His longest pass was just 19 yards. It was by far the worst game of the season for the 26-year-old pass slinger. Still, you have to give him points for spunk. Early in the game, after taking a couple of hits, the precocious passer jumped into linebacker Bill Romanowski's face -- not someplace anyone really wants to be -- and screamed. "Keep coming, keep coming, keep coming!" he yelled, according to Raiders defensive end Regan Upshaw. "That didn't hurt. I'm a football player, too." Said Oakland tackle Rod Coleman: "I wish I would've heard him say it." The Raiders did keep coming, of course. They never stopped. After Oakland took a 24-10 lead and the pass-happy Jets were forced to really go to the pass, Pennington was … well, he was awful. His passes floated; they were way off-target. They were all over the place. In the second half, he completed only seven of his 26 attempts for only 85 yards. "His balls are like … loft balls," Shaw said, not really meaning to insult Pennington. "Look, everyone gets rattled in their lifetime -- especially when you can't find your guys open." Pennington was absolutely rattled. Maybe it was the fact that the Raiders are just too familiar with the Jets. This was the fourth meeting in a little more than a year between these two teams. Maybe Pennington was just due a bad game. He was on a roll, including holding an impressive streak of 145 passes without an interception. That ended early in the third quarter, when cornerback Tory James picked off a pass intended for Laveranues Coles. But maybe the Raiders are just too much for a young guy like Pennington. Too hard-hitting, too smart, too wily and too unaffected by the latest kid to be likened to Joe Montana or Joe Namath. "I just think we have a good feel for their system," said Oakland's Rod Woodson, the veteran defensive back. "He's a good, young quarterback. But any quarterback can get rattled. I can't say he got rattled. But we have a good feel for their system." Pennington gave the league one of the best storylines -- maybe the best -- of this season. Young Hot-Handed Quarterback from Small School Takes Over Struggling Big-Time Jets and Leads Them to the Playoffs. It was a wonderful story. But every good story has to end. Pennington's ended Sunday. We'll have to wait until next season to see if he's got another one in him. John Donovan is a senior writer for CNNSI.com. Comments? To e-mail Donovan, click here. |
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