Chandler Jones earned emotional moment in shocking Raiders’ win

By Case Keefer (contact)

Monday, Dec. 19, 2022 | 2 a.m.

Chandler Jones’ immediate thought after making a play that will live on for eternity with no time left on the clock Sunday afternoon at Allegiant Stadium was that he needed space to breathe.

The edge rusher was completely out of breath after intercepting a Jakobi Meyers lateral and sprinting 48 yards for a game-winning touchdown as his teammates celebrated by cornering him against a wall. Once the 11-year veteran who started his career with the Patriots freed himself, emotions hit him as the scoreboard spelled out a 30-24 Raiders’ victory over his former team.

“I love the sport,” Jones explained a few minutes later in the Raiders’ locker room. “I started to tear up because it just hit me how big of a play I had made. It didn’t hit me yet (before that), so I was like, ‘Let me take this moment for myself a little bit and drop a few tears.’”

Decisive late plays like Jones’ have occurred in Raiders’ games all year but they’ve mostly broken against them. Las Vegas looked like it was en route to yet another heartbreaking loss in the Week 15 game against New England when it blew a double-digit halftime lead — 17-3 this time around — for the fifth time this season.

The Raiders’ recurring failures have been disappointing to everyone on the roster, but especially Jones. Brought in by the new regime of fellow former Patriots like coach Josh McDaniels and general manager Dave Ziegler, Jones was expected to be one of the leaders of an improved Raiders’ defense.

Instead, he started slow and didn’t have a single sack until a victory two weeks ago over the Los Angeles Chargers. A lot of the blame for the Raiders ranking near the bottom of the league in most defensive statistical categories fell on Jones.

If the Patriots had somehow scored on the aforementioned, fateful final play, Jones would have surely taken more heat for failing to tackle Patriots running back Rhamondre Stevenson near the line of scrimmage. Stevenson, a Las Vegas native and former Centennial High standout, broke a Jones tackle and when the edge rusher tried to get up off the grass, a Patriots’ offensive lineman shoved him in the back.

That inadvertently left Jones in perfect position on the Raiders’ shield midfield when a Stevenson pitch to Meyers turned into an ill-advised long lateral attempt to Patriots quarterback Mac Jones. Chandler Jones read what Meyers was trying to do, leapt to pick off the ball, stiff-armed Mac Jones and went untouched into the end zone from there.

“Chan has been through a lot,” linebacker Denzel Perryman said. “I’m not saying anything off the field. Nothing’s going on that you guys don’t know about…A lot of us pay attention to what (the media) say — the negativity. I’m not saying Chan did, but he made a great play man. It had to feel good.”

Perryman might have been the only member of the Raiders’ defense not to join in on the celebration. He ran right past the rows of bodies in black jerseys pressed against Chandler Jones to the locker room in what he called a “Forrest Gump moment” to use the restroom.

He was certainly the lone of three defensive captains not present, as edge rusher Maxx Crosby sprinted down the field right after flattening Meyers in the aftermath of the lateral. Safety Duron Harmon, another former Patriot, felt like he had to share the moment with his longtime friend too.

“You look at the impact he’s head over the last three weeks, it’s been game-changing plays — three sacks, forced fumbles and now walk-off fumble return with the game on the line,” Harmon said of Jones. “Obviously you know the statistics everyone else outside the building will want to see hasn’t been there, but I’m telling you, he’s been playing tremendous for us.”

Chandler Jones had continued on his recent breakout against the Patriots even before scoring the first defensive touchdown of his professional career. He didn’t have sack but managed a couple key pressures on Mac Jones — including one hit on a third-down in the third quarter that opened a cut on the quarterback’s chin — and a couple batted-down passes.

Led by Chandler Jones, Crosby (three quarterback hits) and Perryman (a team-high nine tackles), the Raiders’ defense kept the team in the game for most of the day. Although Las Vegas couldn’t contain Stevenson, who had 19 carries for a career-high 172 yards in his homecoming, it rendered Mac Jones useless with a horrific stat line of 112 yards on 11-for-31 passing.

New England’s first touchdown came early in the third quarter when safety Kyle Dugger jumped a screen pass from Las Vegas quarterback Derek Carr intended for Davante Adams and returned it 14 yards for a touchdown. The Raiders’ defense otherwise held the Patriots in the second half to a pair of long field goals from kicker Nick Folk, mostly set up by poor field position after failed offensive drives, until less than five minutes remained in the game.

Las Vegas’ defense then crumbled for the first time by giving up 76 yards on three plays in less than a minute-and-a-half capped by a 34-yard touchdown run from Stevenson. That gave New England its first lead of the game at 24-17 after Meyers caught a two-point conversion pass with 3:43 remaining.

A few Raiders’ fans reasonably booed considering the home team’s offense had only mustered two first downs and 36 yards over their previous six second-half possessions.

“What happened in the second half, it wasn’t what we try to go out there and put on a tape,” tight end Darren Waller said. “But when it counted, guys made plays and that’s all you can ask for.”

Waller, who returned from a hamstring injury and caught a 25-yard touchdown pass in the second quarter, had one reception as part of an out-of-nowhere nine-play, 81-yard scoring drive to tie the game in the final minute. Depth receiver Keelan Cole hauled in his first touchdown catch as a Raider two plays later on a precise 30-yard spiral from Carr in the corner of the end zone.

The score triggered a review, and though the officials spent an inordinate amount of time analyzing it with one angle specifically looking like Cole’s foot was out of bounds, the touchdown ruling was upheld.

“I was like, ‘A Patriot-Raider game ending in a review,’” Carr said referencing the infamous “Tuck Rule” game from 20 years ago. “Can we please have one just fall our way?”

The decision looked like the definition of borderline, so it’s fair to say the Raiders benefited from some good fortune in having the touchdown stand. Little did Carr know at the time, an even bigger stroke of luck was about to fall their way.

Meyers is known as a heady veteran to make his decision to lateral the ball 10 yards behind him while on the run all the more perplexing. He chalked it up to, “trying to do too much and be a hero.”

Meyers fought back the opposite type of tears as Chandler Jones’ after the game as he was devastated and criticized himself for not being smart enough on the field.

“I was very shocked,” Harmon said of how the Patriots handled the final play. “I just thought ‘Mondre would kind of go down with zero seconds left but he didn’t and the thing about this league is when people make mistakes, you’ve got to make them pay. We did.”

The victory keeps hope alive for the Raiders (6-8) to reach the playoffs for at least one more week. Sitting two games back of the Chargers for the final AFC wild-card spot, they will need to win each of their three remaining games and get some help along the way.

That’s not going to be easy with a game at the Steelers on Christmas Eve followed by home games hosting Super Bowl contenders in the San Francisco 49ers and Kansas City Chiefs. But the improbable broke in favor of the Raiders for once against the Patriots.

And if Chandler Jones can maintain his recent form and continue to coax success out of the Raiders’ defense, who’s to say it can’t happen again?

“I was just trying to make plays honestly,” Chandler Jones said. “Even it wasn’t me who made that touchdown, I just want to do something to help us win.”

Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or [email protected]. Follow Case on Twitter at twitter.com/casekeefer.Case Keefer can be reached at 702-948-2790 or