ST. LOUIS -– Donald Penn certainly celebrated the Raiders first of the season last week, but his postgame message after beating the Kansas City Chiefs kept an eye on the future.
The veteran tackle repeated one phrase several times: “I want more. I want more.”
Translation: Don’t let one Thursday night be the positive memory from 16 games work.
Veterans echoed that chorus, and believed a winning streak could start on Sunday in St. Louis. One certainly didn’t. These Raiders gave their worst performance of the year, the franchise’s worst in 50-plus years, in a 52-0 loss to the Rams at Edward Jones Dome.
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The Raiders fell to 1-11 in humiliating fashion.
While many kept disappointment internal, Penn was clearly miffed. He didn’t pull punches, and he certainly didn’t make excuses for poor play.
He felt the loss was especially disappointing, given how well the Raiders played last week.
“If you get one win, you can’t settle on that for the rest of the year,” Penn said. “I felt we didn’t come out with intensity. We didn’t come out ready to play today, and it showed from the get go. We can’t do that, especially with our record being down. We’ve got to be ready to play every game. In this game, we definitely didn’t come out ready and it showed.
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“We flat out got our butts whooped, plain and simple. There’s nothing else you can say.”
The Raiders didn’t have a great week of practice, but neither Penn nor anyone else saw this disaster coming. The Raiders were left wondering what went so terribly wrong over four hellacious quarters of football.
“I can’t answer that,” Penn said. “If I could answer, the game wouldn’t have played out this way. I’m not shocked. I’m disappointed. I’m disappointed in my play, and the play of some others.”
“I’m not going to lie. This hurts. I’m very disappointed. I wish next Sunday was in a couple days, so I can get rid of this feeling.”
