Gradkowski to the rescue again

In echoes of his rise to folk hero last year, Bruce Gradkowski came off the bench to energize a previously listless Raider team and lead them to victory.

In his half he led the Raiders nearly 300 more total yars than Campbell did during the first half. He made the offense resemble the successful offense that had been promised by the offseason, whilst Campbell never could seem to get things going.

Once Gradkowksi took over the offense and got them moving the ball successfully down the field, the defense responded with repeated three and outs. They fed off the rejuvenated offense and responded by reaching down and coming through on stop after stop.

After the game, wide receiver Darrius Heyeard-Bey said, “Bruce, he’s in the huddle, he’s laughing it up, chewing gum all the time, uh, that’s just his personality. But this game, I think the second half, no matter who the quarterback was, we was gonna’ come out there fired up. I mean, we came in at halftime, we had to win this game. So we was going to do whatever we had to do to win.”

Jared Veldheer, who spent the day rotating with Mario Henderson at left tackle, didn’t seem to place the credit for the turn around with Gradkowski, but with the overall attitude of the team. “Our whole goal in the second half was just to keep fighting and really run the ball on them. We knew everything would take care of itself from there. We just went in the second half with Bruce and did everything we talked about at halftime doing.”

Head coach Tom Cable praised Gradkowski’s energy and the spark he brings, “that’s just him. That’s his personality. That’s the way he is every day. He just loves to get after it and go for it,” he also offered some criticism, “but he’d be the first to tell you he made some real critical errors too.”

Gradkowski’s presence was an instant improvement. His first two drives after he entered the game ended in points. Although, he wasn’t satisfied because they got into the red zone and had to come away with field goals. However, he was down to earth about his play, “They called my number and I just said I’m just going to do my thing, go out and have fun. We did that the second half. I’m excited. Our offense did some good things.”

He spread the credit to his teammates, “We have all the weapons. We have the tools. We
just need to get after it. We have to get after it, stay disciplined and have that fire and energy. Just find a way to get it done. That’s what we did this second half. That’s what excites me.  Darren McFadden ran his tail off today. That offensive line, they blocked their butts off.
We did a great job. Darrius had a great game, Louis made some big plays, Zach’s always clutch. You can count on all those guys. It’s good to see us put something together. We just have to get better, continue to get better and move forward.”

Tom Cable was non-committal as to whether it would be Campbell or Gradkowski who would start next week in Arizona. He said specifically, “I’ll worry about all that tomorrow, really. I want to go look at it. But today was about winning this game, what did it take to do that, that was the right choice, obviously, and it worked out, and Bruce came in and gave us a lift.”

Scoring Summary

SECOND QUARTER				STL	OAK
	TD	12:04	Mark Clayton 7 Yd Pass From Sam Bradford (Josh Brown Kick)	7	0
	FG	03:22	Sebastian Janikowski 38 Yd	7	3
THIRD QUARTER				STL	OAK
	FG	10:54	Sebastian Janikowski 41 Yd	7	6
	TD	06:07	Louis Murphy 4 Yd Pass From Bruce Gradkowski (Sebastian Janikowski Kick)	7	13
FOURTH QUARTER				STL	OAK
	FG	09:50	Sebastian Janikowski 22 Yd	7	16
	TD	03:18	Mark Clayton 17 Yd Pass From Sam Bradford (Josh Brown Kick)	14	16

Team Stat Comparison

	STL	OAK
1st Downs	16	25
Passing 1st downs	9	14
Rushing 1st downs	3	6
1st downs from Penalties	4	5
3rd down efficiency	2-10	7-17
4th down efficiency	0-0	0-1
Total Plays	49	79
Total Yards	210	404
Passing	135	231
Comp-Att	14-25	19-37
Yards per pass	5.4	6.2
Rushing	75	173
Rushing Attempts	21	40
Yards per rush	3.6	4.3
Red Zone (Made-Att)	2-3	1-4
Penalties	8-92	12-90
Turnovers	1	2
Fumbles lost	0	0
Interceptions thrown	1	2
Defensive / Special Teams TDs	0	0
Possession	23:11	36:49