By Paul Gutierrez

McClatchy Newspapers

(MCT)

The joke goes like this: The only thing a “prevent” defense does is prevent you from winning.

Proof positive? The Raiders’ heartbreaking 24-20 season-opening loss to San Diego on national television, a game in which Oakland outplayed the Chargers for three quarters before said “prevent” defense was instituted.

You know what happened next. Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers carved up the Raiders, taking with aplomb what was given him underneath. Consider: in their last two drives, the Chargers gained 166 yards after getting just 152 in the first three quarters.

Yes, there are times when such “soft” coverage works by allowing minimal gains in the middle of the field as the clock runs.

But when the ballcarriers are not only allowed to get through the line of scrimmage, which the Raiders had dominated to that point, but break away for impressive gains and then also get out of bounds to stop the clock, that’s when prevent defenses are cursed, not acclaimed.

Or, as former longtime linebacker Bill Romanowski said on Comcast SportsNet California’s “Raiders Press Conference Live” on Tuesday: “I’ve been in those scenarios a lot … in my career and there are times when it really works, and there are times when it doesn’t work. Last night, it didn’t work.”

No doubt. Coach Tom Cable lamented the Raiders’ inability to close out a game in which they led 20-17 with 2:30 to play and the Chargers on their own 11-yard line.

“(It) just kind of gives you a bad taste in your mouth, but it’s something to work on this week,” Cable said in his day-after media conference at the Raiders’ Alameda compound. “I think we’re going to probably be in a lot of close games like that, so we’ll have to address this immediately – not that we haven’t already – but when you get that close, you’ve got to do more.

“It’s just doing your job.”

Instead, the Raiders’ non-tackling, slow-to-respond version of the prevent allowed the Chargers to dink and dunk for 89 yards, culminating with Darren Sproles’ 5-yard, game-winning run with 18 seconds to play.

“Well, that’s part of what I said, learning how to do it at the end there,” Cable said. “We are who we are. Yet, at the same time, you might have better mix … than just going one way or the other, whether it’s all bump-and-run or it’s all zone coverage, off zone.

“If we learned anything as coaches, there’s a better mix there, rather than being one-dimensional.”

And if we learned anything as observers of Raiders of recent vintage, it’s not to celebrate too soon. Because if not for the prevent defense’s failings, we’d be more closely dissecting JaMarcus Russell’s dramatically uneven game.

Until coming up big with the 57-yard touchdown throw on fourth and 14 to Louis Murphy, Russell was just 11 of 28 for 151 yards. He finished with an unsightly passer rating of 47.6 with an interception and should have been picked off once more had Stephen Cooper caressed a ball that hit him in the chest.

Russell was spectacular throwing the ball down the middle of the field and in short to medium routes, completing nine of 12 passes to running backs and tight ends. He was spectacularly bad going downfield and to the sidelines and completed just three of 18 to wide receivers. And when he missed, he missed by a lot.

“There’s some inaccuracy there,” Cable said, speaking of Russell’s play.

As inaccurate as the Raiders’ prevent defense was ineffective.

Front page photo by Anda Chu/Oakland Tribune/MCT: Richard Seymour speaks to the media during a press conference at Oakland Raiders’ headquarters in Alameda, California, on Saturday, September 12, 2009. Seymour officially joined the Raiders after recently being traded from the New England Patriots. (Anda Chu/Oakland Tribune/MCT)

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(c) 2009, The Sacramento Bee (Sacramento, Calif.).

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