Bowers’ third touchdown almost won the game for the Silver and Black. In order to stay alive in overtime, they needed to respond with at least seven points after the Jaguars marched down for a score. At the two-yard line, Smith saw Bowers getting separation in the back of the end zone and hit him in stride.
Yet the three touchdowns obviously weren’t enough, as a two-point conversion to take the lead was batted down at the line of scrimmage.
“We didn’t come here to tie,” Bowers said. “We wanted to win, but it’s kind of a shame that it ended up like that.”
Bowers credited the tight end room for keeping his spirits high while working through the injury. And even in defeat, Pete Carroll saw a lot of positives to take away from how the offense looked. Of course, Bowers’ performance is atop that list.
“Could it be more obvious what a great player that he is?” Carroll said. “And we have the way to get him the ball. They hooked it up great. Chip got him open, Geno hit him. Efficiency was great. … His run after catch was excellent. His playmaking was excellent.”
“There’s a lot of positives. We played well,” the head coach added. “We did a lot of good things today. Our resolve about hanging tough and keep coming back and keep working to finish.”
Now all the Raiders can do is prepare as quickly as possible for their road Week 10 matchup against the Denver Broncos, with three days of recovery until then.
As for Bowers’ performance, it will still rank among the best for tight ends in franchise history – and his fantasy football owners will be thankful.
But for the All-Pro tight end and a Raiders team that falls to 2-6, it still indeed kind of sucks.