The Las Vegas Raiders had a golden opportunity to beat the Kansas City Chiefs on Friday, but mistakes got the better of them in the end. With less than a minute left in the fourth quarter, the team drove down to field goal range.
Head coach Antonio Pierce elected to run a play on third down instead of kicking the field goal. Center Jackson Powers-Johnson ended up snapping the ball too early, which led to quarterback Aidan O’Connell fumbling the snap and the Chiefs recovered.
They subsequently ran down the clock and Kansas City won. The Raiders had many opportunities to win this game, but they squandered them. In fact, they did something in this loss that hasn’t been done in at least 24 years. According to the Associated Press’s Josh Dubow, the Raiders were the first “team since at least 2000 to turn it over in final 30 seconds when in FG range (35 or closer) and trailing by 1 or 2 points.”
This stat only goes back to 2000 so it’s possible that a team has never turned the ball over in this situation. This certainly isn’t the kind of history the Raiders were hoping to make against their archrival. Kicker Daniel Carlson had missed three field goals prior to that final drive so there’s no guarantee the Raiders would’ve won but they essentially handed the game away in the end.
