The Las Vegas Raiders were struggling early against the defending #1 seed in the AFC. Even though the season is very early, they had to do some serious soul searching. Trailing 9-6 at halftime the whole team had to gut check themselves and make a decision that they weren’t going to lay down on the road.
“We came in here at halftime and said, ‘We can run with these guys,'” tackle Thayer Munford Jr. said postgame. “We can’t just bow down to them because they were just in the AFC Championship Game. Our defense was playing their asses off, we had to do something. We came together and said, ‘Screw it, let’s go.'”
Tale of two halves
After Robert Spillane picked off Lamar Jackson in the third quarter, the tides truly turned. The Raiders offense scored on four straight possessions which included touchdowns from Alexander Mattison and Davante Adams. Carlson knocked in another two field goals, including the eventual game winning field goal to propel the Raiders to a hard fought 26-23 win on the road.
“Congratulations to our offense and our team, but we’ve still got work to do. … There’s a lot of meat on the bone,” Antonio Pierce said. “I’ll be honest, we’ve got to run the ball better. But I do say this, we came out in the second half, especially late in that third quarter, protected the quarterback.”
Gardner Minshew was efficient again with completing 78% of his passes and throwing for 276 yards. Protecting the quarterback was definitely a decisive factor in helping the team pull off the comeback win. His ability to extend plays paid dividends down the stretch.
