Cable is no Belichick

<p>Bill Belichick, New England’s normally unassailable coach, was all but crucified a week earlier for running a play on fourth-and-2 at his own 28-yard line instead of punting to the Colts with a little over two minutes left in a game the Patriots ultimately lost. </p><p>The details were different for Tom Cable on Sunday, but the quandary was similar: Should the Raiders try for the first down on fourth-and-2 at their 47-yard line with 7:50 left, down 17-10 to the Bengals? Cable decided to punt, believing his defense would stop Cincinnati and retrieve the ball.</p><p>“I felt like we just kind of got out of whack there on the third-down play,” Cable said, referring to a Justin Fargas run that was stuffed for no gain. “Defense, you noticed, we had really gotten some stops ... so I was pretty confident we’d get a second chance at the end there.”</p><p>If the Bengals had mounted a five-minute touchdown drive to ice the game, Cable would have been hanging right there next to Belichick. As it was, the Raiders forced them into three-and-out, and eventually came back to steal a win.</p><p>And it wouldn’t be the last time Cable chose discretion over glory and wound up looking like a genius Sunday. When Louis Murphy scored with 33 seconds left, the Raiders could have won the game with a 2-point conversion. Cable ordered a game-tying PAT kick, and his team won anyway after Brandon Myers’ big fumble recovery on the ensuing kickoff.</p><p>Monday, Cable admitted he considered going for the deuce.</p><p>“We talked about it,” he said. “My thought was we had battled to get there. That (touchdown) would probably put the crowd into the game as well as we could. Let’s go to overtime and win it there. If we can get one more drive, I felt we were really getting into a rhythm offensively.”</p><h3>READY FOR MY SCREEN TEST, MR. DAVIS</h3> <p>Myers played some special teams at the University of Iowa, and he says he played pretty much everything at Prairie City-Monroe High School in Iowa. But until Sunday, he had never stripped an opponent and recovered the fumble.</p><p>“No. Nothing like that,” the soft-spoken rookie tight end said Monday. “It was a first for me, and came at a good time.”</p><p>There’s the understatement of the decades. Without Myers’ play, the Raiders would have headed into overtime against a Bengals team that had proved itself superior over the course of the season, if not the afternoon. As it was, Myers separated return man Andre Caldwell from the football and recovered at the Cincinnati 17-yard line.</p><p>Four plays later, Sebastian Janikowski kicked a game-winning 33-yard field goal.</p><p>“Kickoffs, it happens so fast ... I was on the backside and I seen him cutting back, and I was just trying to make a play, and luckily kind of fell into it,” Myers recalled.</p><p>After the game, many Raiders didn’t even know who had made the miraculous play. Now they do. Speaking to reporters Monday, Myers was about to go watch film with the rest of the team, ready for his few seconds of fame.</p><p>“Yeah, makes it a lot easier to go to the meetings,” he said.</p><h3>OR QB COULD STAND ON A STOOL</h3> <p>Bruce Gradkowski was the toast of Oakland after leading a 2-minute drill that delivered the upset over Cincinnati. His game wasn’t perfect though, and one of the flaws was getting two passes batted down at the line by Bengals defensive end Frostee Rucker.</p><p>Gradkowski is 6-foot-1, short by NFL quarterback standards, and this problem has cropped up before. He had more than a few passes swatted during training camp in Napa. Cable said Gradkowski can create passing lanes by moving in the pocket. But he suggested the solution wasn’t purely in the QB’s hands.</p><p>“As offensive linemen, you have to be aware of those things, being his physical stature,” Cable said. “So we have a thing about jumpers and being more aware of it than we were before. Before, it was kind of easy because JaMarcus was so much taller than everybody over the top. But it becomes part of their assignment, too, when they feel a rusher’s hands go up or a jumper, to knock them down.”</p><p>JaMarcus Russell is 6-foot-6.</p><h3>INJURIES DEEMED NOT SERIOUS</h3> <p>The two Raiders hurt Sunday both are questionable for the Thanksgiving game in Dallas, meaning neither is expected to be a long-term concern. Richard Seymour tweaked his back early in the game. Special teamer Isaiah Ekejiuba injured his left knee in the second quarter.</p><p>Ekejiuba was walking a little gingerly in the locker room Monday, but was confident he’d be back soon. He hurt his left knee around the kneecap on a punt play in the second quarter, when the man he beat on the play, Cincinnati’s Abdul Hodge, fell on the knee and twisted it. Ekejiuba iced the joint, put on a little brace and attempted to play, to no avail.</p><p>“I just couldn’t go,” he said. “I tried to warm it up, and just nothing, no kind of strength in it.”</p><p>Cable said that among the other banged-up Raiders, WR Nick Miller (shin) is out of the Cowboys game, WR Javon Walker (hamstring) and LB Jon Alston (illness, possibly related to concussions) are questionable, and DE Greg Ellis (knee, shoulder) is probable.</p><p><em>You can reach Staff Writer Phil Barber at 521-5263 or phil.barber@pressdemocrat.com.</em></p>