ALAMEDA -- With 15 penalties for 130 yards Sunday against Denver, it was the fourth time in eight games this season the Raiders were flagged at least 11 times, and the third time they hit triple-digits in penalty yardage.Rookie coach Hue Jackson's immediate response?"We're not a very intelligent football team right now," he said following the Raiders' 38-24 loss to the Broncos. "We're not playing very intelligently when it comes to penalties."
It wasn't really Bill Callahan's "dumbest team in America" rant from 2003, but it was a close cousin. And for good reason.No doubt the Raiders are leading the NFL in both penalties (84, or 14 more than Seattle) and penalty yardage (730, or 157 yards more than Tampa Bay). Oakland mind you, has only played eight games, while some have played nine times.On pace for 168 penalties for 1,460 yards, the Raiders would blow past the single-season record set by Kansas City in 1998. Those Chiefs were flagged 158 times for 1,304 yards.The Raiders' single-season marks? They had 156 penalties in both 1994 and 1996 and 1,276 penalty yards last season.In fact, if the Raiders hold on to lead the league in penalties, it will mark an NFL-record 17th time they would have done so, breaking a tie of 16 times with Chicago.Something to shoot for, right?"Some of the penalties, to me, is uncalled for," Jackson said. "And I'm going to continue to address it. I don't want anyone to think that we haven't. We have officials. We talk about it. We emphasize it, and we're not going to stop. I told you guys, it might be Game 16 when it's fixed. I don't know. But I know one thing, I'm not going to let it slide. We're going to continue to address it."No, you can't fine a player for a penalty. You can't take their money for penalties. I've had all kinds of people tell me other solutions. That's not how it works in the National Football League. I wish it did. I wish it did. But that's not the way it works. You can't take a player's, you can threaten a player's job and all that, I mean, but hey, even the backups are making penalties, so it's a problem and we'll continue to address it and keep working on it."
At least they're consistent. In the opener against the Broncos, the Raiders also had 15 penalties, but for 131 yards. In fact, they have 29 penalties for 250 yards in their last two games, gut-wrenching losses to the Chiefs and Broncos.A look at the Raiders' penalties this season:OpponentPenaltiesPenalty yards
Denver15131
Buffalo885
Jets755
Houston1189
New England 985
Cleveland535
Kansas City 14120Denver15130
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