Based on Week 1, it could take time for the Las Vegas Raiders‘ offense to start to gel. The offense only mustered 10 points, turned the ball over three times and made it to the red zone once.
Expectations weren’t high for the Raiders offense heading into the season but it was an especially poor showing. However, it’s not something that completely surprised star wide receiver Davante Adams. He was honest about his expectations for the offense following the 22-10 loss to the Los Angeles Chargers.
“I didn’t come into today expecting our offense to have its best game,” Adams said in his September 8 postgame media availability. “We just have to find what we can fix and go from there. … I saw some good things from Gardner [Minshew], and we have to work together to help him as much as possible.”
Based on that first comment, it sounds like Adams isn’t too high on what the offense can do early in the season, but he does see some positives. The Raiders have a new playcaller and quarterback in offensive coordinator Luke Getsy and Gardner Minshew. It’s naturally going to take some time for the offense to be at full strength but Las Vegas isn’t going to win many games scoring 10 points.
Antonio Pierce Laments Offensive Struggles
Head coach Antonio Pierce’s background is on the defensive side of the ball. He played linebacker in the NFL and eventually became the linebackers coach for the Raiders before getting promoted to head coach.
Offense isn’t his area of expertise but as the head coach, the success of the entire team is on him. He was not thrilled with what he saw from the offense in Week 1.
“The run game was poor, the passing game was off and you can’t have three turnovers on the road and expect to win,” Pierce said during his September 8 press conference. “We had talked about winning the line of scrimmage, which we didn’t do on either side of the ball.”
The Raiders defense was impressive for most of the game having only given up nine points in the first three quarters, six of which came following offensive turnovers. However, the offense wasn’t able to stay on the field for long stretches and the defense got tired as they allowed 13 points in the fourth quarter. There’s only so much the defense can do if they don’t get any support from the offense.
Gardner Minshew Still Believes in Offense
Minshew has a lot of pressure on him to perform. He narrowly beat out Aidan O’Connell to win the starting quarterback job but it’s easy to see Pierce changing his mind if the offense struggles through the first quarter of the season.
That said, the Raiders do have talented pieces like Adams, Brock Bowers and Jakobi Meyers on offense. Minshew is confident that they’ll be able to get things going at some point this season.
“We have guys that can really stretch the field and we want to find ways to do more of that,” Minshew said after the game. “We still have very high expectations for what we can do as an offense. … We have a lot of juice, and once it clicks, it’s going to click.”
