Written by Michael Silver at NFL.com
He had spent the bulk of his night imposing his will against an esteemed but overmatched opponent, relocating accomplished defenders like DeMarcus Ware and Von Miller as if they were bales of hay blocking the barn door. Then, with the subtlety of a John Madden sideline tirade from the Raiders’ heyday in the ’70s, Donald Penn became unhinged.
Thrusting the full force of his 315 pounds toward the west sideline, flailing his arms and spitting out his mouthpiece, Penn, the Raiders’ 11th-year left tackle, threw a supersized tantrum Sunday night in front of 54,957 fans at the Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum, a national television audience and one equally massive assistant coach.
“Why the (expletive) are we not running the ball?” Penn screamed. “They can’t stop us! Just run the damn ball!
Gesturing toward offensive line coach Mike Tice, Penn continued: “You need to speak up!”
“How do you know I’m not?” Tice replied.
In reality, Penn and his fellow offensive linemen were in the midst of making a resounding statement — to the defending Super Bowl champion Denver Broncos, and to the football world at large. In a hotly anticipated showdown for first place in the AFC West, the Raiders (7-2) steamrolled the Broncos (6-3) by a 30-20 score, rushing for a ridiculous 218 yards and three Latavius Murray touchdowns in the process.
Given the ease with which Oakland dispatched the league’s most dominant defense of the past season-and-a-half, you’d have thought there would have been nothing but hugs and high-fives on the sideline. Penn’s surly spit fit, which took place with 7:09 remaining and the Raiders holding a 23-13 lead, showed that winners sometimes must confront the ire that stems from creative differences.
This was the situation: The Raiders had just forced the game’s first turnover, with linebacker Bruce Irvindislodging the football from Denver quarterback Trevor Siemian and defensive end Khalil Mackrecovering at the Broncos’ 39-yard-line. On Oakland’s next play, Derek Carr dropped back and threw a short pass toward fullback Jamize Olawale, who was running a wheel route to the right. The pass missed its target, however, and Denver safety T.J. Ward made an apparent diving interception at the 30, giving his team new life.
It was then that Penn lost his mind, enraged that Raiders offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave had overcomplicated the issue by doing anything but continuing to ram the ball down the Broncos’ throat.
Eventually, order was restored, and all was well that ended well: The interception was overturned on replay review; the Raiders scored a game-clinching touchdown, with Murray blasting over the goal line from a yard out; and Penn and Musgrave hugged it out in the locker room, as the coordinator made the rounds thanking his linemen for a stellar effort.
Rest assured, he was not alone in his praise.
“They are the best in the league, bar none,” Carr told me between bites of a chicken sandwich as he stood in the middle of the Raiders’ locker room after the game. “I don’t know if anybody’s scored 30 on (the Broncos) this year, but we always expect to have success up front. And trust me, we’re not even close to where we think we can be.”
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