Hosting the lowly Carolina Panthers this week in their regular season home opener, the Raiders were one of the league’s heaviest favorites to get a win.
Gardner Minshew was coming away from a strong performance against the Baltimore Ravens, and the Raiders were finally getting the respect they felt they deserved.
But rather than stake their claim as one of the promising young teams in the NFL, the Raiders lost to the Panthers in embarrassing fashion. At one point in the fourth quarter, the Raiders were down 33-7 and were being outplayed in every aspect of the game.
Top to bottom, the Raiders looked like the worst team in the league.
A couple of garbage time touchdowns closed the gap in the fourth quarter, but Raiders’ flagship radio host ‘JT the Brick’ still called the game one of the most disappointing he has covered since joining the organization.
“That was the worst football game I’ve ever been to at Allegiant Stadium. That goes to the worst football game, the top of the list of professional football played at Allegiant Stadium by the Las Vegas Raiders,” JT said on his weekday Raider Nation Radio program.
“That stands alone as the worst football game I have seen when it comes to outcome, storylines, and effort. It is worse than the Jeff Saturday game. It is worse than the Kyler Murray comeback because the Raiders actually showed up in the first half of that game,” JT continued. “It was worse than the 3-0 loss to Minnesota. It is the worst game that I’ve ever been through as a member of the organization and a fan in regard to what was at stake and what happened in the game. They absolutely no-showed, no-showed the season opener at home.”
Coming from the airwaves of the team’s flagship radio station, it was no small statement from JT to rank Sunday’s loss as the worst ever at Allegiant Stadium.
To his point, though, there was nothing to take away from Sunday’s game and feel good about as a Raider fan.
If anything, Aidan O’Connell’s performance in garbage time might have only created a quarterback controversy. Head coach Antiono Pierce wouldn’t rule out a change at quarterback during Monday’s press conference, but it was reported later in the day that Gardner Minshew will start in week 4 against the Browns.
The Browns (1-2) will travel to Las Vegas this week and they are in a position just as desperate as the Raiders. The biggest difference in Cleveland, though, is that they have a $230 million quarterback on the roster that hasn’t been playing well.
It’s been rumored that the Browns are looking at ways to potentially get out of Deshaun Watson’s contract, and that’s an unenviable position that even the Raiders don’t find themselves in at the moment.
Without question, the Raiders have to find a way to win this week.
Every extreme option should be on the table if they don’t.
