- The Raiders punched their ticket to the playoffs with a Week 18 overtime win over the Chargers.
- Had the game ended in a tie, both teams would have advanced to the postseason.
Sunday night's matchup between the Chargers and Raiders was supposed to be simple. Both teams entered the game 9-7. The winner would be sent to the playoffs, the loser to the offseason.
But there was a third scenario, however implausible, that was still possible. If the Jaguars upset the Colts and the Steelers beat the Ravens, both the Raiders and Chargers could make it to the postseason with a tie.
The hypothetical scenario created plenty of fodder for talk shows throughout the week. If the tie scenario was live heading into the game, couldn't both teams decide to kneel out 60 minutes of game time and 10 minutes of overtime, shake hands, and head off into the postseason?
They could! It wouldn't happen — both head coaches acknowledged that they would be playing to win — but it could!
Then Sunday happened. The Colts no-showed against the Jaguars, losing in embarrassing fashion. The Steelers pulled out an overtime win against the Ravens.
The tie-pocalypse was in play.
The Chargers and Raiders kicked off their game, and it was clear that the coaches weren't bluffing — their teams were playing to win. With the Raiders leading by 15 with five minutes left in the game, it looked like Las Vegas was set to punch their ticket to the postseason and send Los Angeles packing.
Then the Chargers scored and converted their two-point conversion. After a stop, the Chargers then drove the field, converting three do-or-die fourth downs before scoring on the final play of regulation.
We were going to overtime.
Again, kneeling the game out was still an option. Both teams played well, and both were deserving of a spot in the postseason.
Instead, they kept playing, but fate wouldn't allow them to avoid the inevitable. The Chargers and Raiders traded field goals in the extra period, leaving the Raiders with the ball with 4:30 left in the extra period. Next score wins.
At the start of their final possession, the Raiders seemed content to play it safe, rushing the ball with Josh Jacobs rather than taking on any risky throws. Given that a tie still got the Raiders to the postseason, and the only way they'd miss out on a spot in the wild card round was with a turnover, keeping things conservative made sense.
But Jacobs broke free on a few runs. With each run, it again looked like both teams were ready to let the clock tick away, with neither the Raiders nor the Chargers reaching for a timeout. After a big third-down conversion, suddenly the Raiders were past midfield, on the edge of field goal range as the game hit its two-minute warning.
With 38 seconds left and the Raiders facing 3rd-and-four from the Chargers' 39-yard line, Chargers head coach Brandon Staley called timeout.
After the game, Staley said the timeout was taken to get his best rushing defense in the game.
On the next play, Jacobs rushed for another 10-yard gain, setting up Raiders kicker Daniel Carlsen for a game-winning field goal.
After Carlsen's kick went through the uprights, the Raiders were through to the playoffs, the Chargers were done for the year, and fans across the NFL were shocked that the improbable turned inevitable tie had somehow failed to come to fruition.
After the game, Staley's decision to call timeout came under harsh scrutiny.
Through the Raiders' final drive, it appeared that both teams were prepared to run the game out and head off to the postseason together. Only when Jacobs broke free to get the Raiders further into Chargers territory did the prospect of kicking for the win become more real.
By taking the timeout, some watching at home believed Staley had signaled that the Chargers were still playing to win, breaking the agreement of the prisoner's dilemma, and prompting the Raiders to keep pushing for the win themselves. Is that how the situation played out? Yes, but mostly no.
After the game, NBC's Michele Tafoya asked Derek Carr if the Chargers' timeout changed their thinking heading into the final play.
"Yeah, it definitely did, obviously," Carr said. "We knew, no matter what, we didn't want to tie. We wanted to win the football game. Obviously, if you tie, you're in, all those things, but my mindset all day — I even was texting with Aaron Rodgers this morning — my mindset was to make sure we were the only team moving on after this."
The timeout was in their heads, but also, the Raiders were always pushing for the win. It sounds a little convoluted, but it feels true. Raiders head coach Rich Bisaccia mirrored Carr's sentiment.
"Yeah, it was a conversation. We were talking about it," Bisaccia said when asked about the potential for a tie. "We ran the ball there, and they didn't call a timeout, so I think they were probably thinking the same thing. And then we had the big run, and when we had the big run that got us into advantageous field goal position for us, we were going to take the field goal and try to win it."
Again, yes, but mostly no.
Undoubtedly, the Raiders had been talking on the sidelines about the possibility of a tie.
Had the Raiders failed to pick up the first down, they would have been staring down a potential 57-yard field goal to win the game. With the risk of a botched snap or blocked kick or return out of the end zone looming, it's possible that at that point, they would have been satisfied with letting the game end in a tie.
But after Jacobs' big gain, Las Vegas was left with a much more manageable 47-yard field goal attempt and had a kicker in Daniel Carlsen, who had never missed inside the dome of their home stadium.
Further, the Raiders had the motivation to win. While making it to the postseason was the most important goal, their opponent would depend on how they got there: with a tie, the Raiders were off to Kansas City to play the Chiefs, while a win came with a trip to Cincinnati to play the Bengals.
Given the Raiders had already lost to the Chiefs twice this year, with a 27-point loss being the closer of the two games, it's no surprise that they took their chance on a flight to Cincinnati instead.
If the Raiders had the chance to win the game, they were going to take it, with or without Staley's timeout.
The result was ultimately a Raiders win, a Chargers loss, and one of the most fascinating football games in recent memory.
On the sidelines and after the game, you could see players on both teams reeling from the complex end game where they found themselves.
When watching sports, the objectives are almost always simple and clear. Get the ball in the end zone, through the hoop, into the back of the net.
But Sunday night presented fans with a chaotic final few minutes, where the motivations of both teams became temporarily muddled as the outcome of the game on the field had far more complicated implications for both teams' futures than is usually the case for a single game.
For a moment, it looked as though the best play was to sit on the ball and live to fight another day. One timeout and one big play complicated things even further.
After a week of praying for the tie-pocalypse, NFL fans nearly got it. What happened was more fascinating than we could have imagined.
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