In the Raiders’ brave Hue World, their coach isn’t just the undisputed boss, he is also lead publicist and attention-getter-in-chief.
Which is good — when the Raiders, bound by Hue Jackson’s inspiration, come together through grief and drama.
And it is bad — when the Raiders play their quarterback decision way too cute, then lay an egg at home against Kansas City, as they did in Sunday’s 28-0 debacle.
Good Hue is charming, creative and unifying.
Bad Hue is way too full of himself, and on Sunday, he made a bit of a fool of himself.
“Obviously, we lost, and that falls on me,” Jackson said after the game. “This is the team that I lead, and we didn’t play like the Raiders can play.”
No, on Sunday, the Raiders played like a distracted, unorganized team that took an early hit from a much less talented squad, and never recovered.
Gee, what could’ve distracted them?
Only a few days ago, right after Jason Campbell’s serious injury, Jackson acquired Carson Palmer and bragged that it was the “greatest trade in football.”
Then Jackson spent all week teasing with the possibility of Palmer starting this game over semi-incumbent Kyle Boller.
This was Jackson’s decision and his play, and he luxuriated in the raw power of it all.
The result: He showed he’s in charge. The other result: His two QBs played horrendously, and his team played like its coach had gobbled up all the focus and energy for his own
amusement.
On Sunday, after the debacle, Jackson said Boller and Palmer basically knew that Boller was the guy all week, and that Jackson officially told them on Saturday.
Of course, nobody outside of the team knew it would be Boller until he trotted out for the Raiders’ first offensive play early in the first quarter.
“I never said to anybody that I was going to play Carson Palmer,” Jackson said. “I said we were going to get him ready. So Kyle was going to play the whole time.
“I have some gamesmanship myself in coaching.”
Yeah, the Chiefs really seemed to be discombobulated by it.
Now, the Raiders didn’t lose the game strictly because Jackson did a lot of odd things — including trick plays involving Terrelle Pryor and Michael Bush that blew up at crucial times.
But, in a game where early momentum was everything, Jackson caused some anti-momentum of his own.
Afterward, he had a unique construction: Blame the coach for the loss, but not for any of the decisions that led to it.
“Uncertainty didn’t lead to anything,” Jackson said, when asked if holding off on the decision led to poor QB play. “Uncertainty at quarterback didn’t lead to interceptions or any of that.”
He’s right, in part: The QBs were just plain bad. The major problem is that the Raiders were stuck with Boller in the first place. But wasn’t Jackson the guy who picked him as Campbell’s caddy?
On the third offensive play of the game, Boller threw a disastrous pass that was picked off and quickly returned 59 yards for a touchdown by Kendrick Lewis.
Boom, 7-0 Chiefs, which is when the Coliseum crowd began the “Palmer! Palmer!” chant.
Then Boller threw another interception. And then another. More boos, loud boos, all kinds of boos.
Boller started the third quarter, but threw three consecutive incompletions before Jackson finally pulled him for Palmer.
And then Palmer threw three interceptions of his own — for six total Raiders interceptions.
Boller was awful; Palmer clearly and understandably wasn’t up to speed after sitting out the entire season until last week; the Raiders blew a very, very winnable game.
What the heck was going on?
“The plan was not to play,” Palmer said. “All week long, it was just being deceptive and giving Kansas City something to think about, I guess. (Then) we got to the third quarter, and he told me it was time to go.”
Jackson also insisted that he held Palmer back initially, despite Palmer’s desire to play immediately, but Palmer never once gave an indication of that — before or after the game.
What a sagging way to enter this bye week at 4-3.
“You can’t expect a quarterback to come in and in one week, just like Carson or Kyle, save the world,” running back Michael Bush said. “We knew there’s going to be some bumps and bruises.”
Sunday was a big bump, right to the noggin, and maybe the coach learned something about the way he handled the lead up.
The Raiders played liked a team that had other things on its mind, against an opponent that it should’ve dominated on talent alone.
Hue Jackson is talented and he is interesting. Sometimes too interesting for his own good, and for his team’s good.
Read Tim Kawakami’s Talking Points blog at blogs.mercurynews.com/kawakami. Contact him at tkawakami@mercurynews.com or 408-920-5442.
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