For four seasons now, the Raiders have had a former wide receiver as their punter. And yet last Sunday was the first time Marquette King had ever tucked the ball and ran with it.
It wasn’t a called fake punt. It was a low snap that skipped. King, being sure-handed as he is, collected the snap to keep it from turning into a disastrous play, but didn’t have the room to try and get the ball away. And being as fleet of foot as he is, he wasn’t forced to fall on it or throw it up for grabs.
What he did was make a quick decision to use his wheels and take off with the ball. He got outside up the right side and sprinted for 27 yards to turn a potential Jaguars score or at least possession in scoring position into a Raiders first down in scoring position of their own. The Raiders drove the remaining 35 yards to put a touchdown on the board and put the game away up 33-16.
The always ‘turnt’ King was out of his mind after that one.
“You know Marquette, he was just hyped,” Latavius Murray told Bay Area radio station 95.7 The Game. “He’s hyped after he boots the ball down the field on a punt, so you can imagine how he’s gonna be feeling after he breaks off a long rushing gain. That’s just the kind of guy he is, man. And that was a big, big, big play to help us seal the game at the end.”
Indeed it was a great play. Potentially a 14-point swing when the Raiders were up by 10 points in the fourth quarter. Had any of the negative scenarios happened, it could have been a 3-point game with over three minutes remaining.
That run makes the case that I have heard a lot of Raiders fans make over the past few years -- the Raiders should consider using him more on fake punts or fake field goals (he’s also the holder). Apparently, that’s a case King has made the coaches as well.
“I can promise you it’s gonna be hard to shut him up about getting some touches now,” Murray continued. “You ain’t gonna be able to tell him nothing now, I already know.”
That being said, most of the time King gets back there, he is a much more lethal weapon using his leg to punt the ball than to run with it. He showed that off again in this game, with a couple of 60-yard punts that pinned the Jaguars against their own goal line.
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