Nearly all of the Las Vegas Raiders' six losses this season have looked about the same.
The Raiders have a successful start to the game, only to eventually make multiple costly mistakes that lead to a loss. A combination of poor coaching, poor execution, turnovers, and penalties has derailed the Silver and Black’s season. All those things came into play again on Sunday against the Kansas City Chiefs.
An untimely turnover by quarterback Gardner Minshew and a questionable roughing penalty against the Raiders undoubtedly changed the game's outcome. As frustrating and costly as those plays were, they were the type of ill-advised plays the Raiders have been making all season.
“You can't make mistakes. You can't kill yourselves,” said Raiders coach Antonio Pierce after Sunday's loss. “If you have great opportunities like we did twice in the third quarter to get points on the board, we have to do that. Then we have to get off the field. They did a good job on third down. Patrick was really good on third down. Did a really good job there. No, I don't think you ever try to coach or play the game perfect. You do the best you can. Obviously they were better in a lot of areas today than us.
Las Vegas has plenty of room for improvement, but at the same time, they gave the undefeated, defending Super Bowl champions a competitive game for nearly four quarters. Still, it was not enough to beat quarterback Patrick Mahomes and the Chiefs. This proves that the Raiders can contend and maybe even defeat the Chiefs the next time they play in a few weeks. However, that cannot happen if the Raiders play bad football weekly.
“I think that as a team, overall, we're going to have to get better,” Pierce said. “We were competitive today. Not to get into play-calling or anything of that nature. I'm sure there are questions about what I did. I think one thing our team did was we were competitive. We fought until the very end and gave ourselves a chance."
There are nine games left in the season, and the Raiders can win multiple games if they do not beat themselves. This Raiders team may not have a good record, but many players inside the locker room take pride in how they play individually and as a team. They must display that pride over the second half of the season, or the roster will look completely different next season from the top down.
