HENDERSON, Nev.—The Las Vegas Raiders (3-4) were beat up - frankly, manhandled - by the Los Angeles Rams (3-4) last night, 35-21, and truthfully, the score wasn’t that close.
I thought the Raiders would win, and with the Rams limping in with multiple injuries, and the NFL Trade Deadline looming, the Raiders, as they have in all four straight losses, cost themselves, and ultimately beat themselves.
Winners and Losers
Each week I reflect on the game, offering winners and losers, and today will be no exception.
Attack, Attack, Attack
I love that Klint Kubiak is aggressive; when you are an underdog, you have to be. So when he came out, won the toss, and didn’t defer, I liked it. It goes against conventional wisdom, but I thought he was sending his team a message that he expected to win and was putting his offense on the field to start to prove a point.
It seemed as if the Raiders got shell-shocked early; the attacking ceased.
Field goals at the end of the first and second half seemed senseless, and when the Rams continued to punish the Raiders, who could get no pass rush, and attacked the Raiders, playing off giving a future Hall of Fame QB with nearly no mobility the ability to stand back and attack them, I was stunned.
I asked Kubiak after the game if they had considered turning up the aggression and going after Matthew Stafford, the Rams QB; he told me bluntly, “No.”
I appreciate his honesty, but I can tell you that was the Rams' biggest offensive concern coming into the game, and the Raiders, by not changing, were victims all night.
Kubiak and his DC, Rob Leonard, are good first-year young coaches. I have not given up faith at all, not one bit, but on that night, they were outcoached.
Kubiak went into more detail and didn’t pull any punches. His feet are firmly planted in reality, and he spoke the truth on that side of the ball.
"Well, no one's coming to help us. We've got to figure it out ourselves as a coaching staff with the players, and we have to complement each other as well because to we've got to start the game a lot faster offensively."
Run Game Woes
The Raiders' offensive line was as bad as their defense. But the Rams got up fast, thus making the Raiders a one-dimensional team (They threw 45 times and ran 14 called runs, and Cousins had three scrambles), and you can’t win in this league when a defense forces you to be one-dimensional. A fact Kubiak is well aware of.
"Yeah, well, you can't win in this league having to throw it as much as we're throwing it. We've got to be more competitive in the game early so that we can be balanced. But there's no balance in playing from behind."
QB Kirk Cousins elaborated on how the game changes when teams force you to go one-dimensional, and to his credit, he sugarcoated nothing.
"You certainly had to be a little bit more one-dimensional. I thought we still tried to do some things to stay varied, but yeah, when you get down three scores or whatever it was, then that's the game you got to play, and that's part of football and part of trying to get back in the game."
Red Zone Woes
The Raiders' abysmal red-zone performance continued this week. The Rams were 5/5, while the Raiders were a lowly 1/5. Kubiak told the truth about it.
"Yeah, it's very disappointing, especially with the emphasis we've put on it. When it comes down to it, we have to make plays down there when we have our one-on-one opportunities. We've got to make the throws, we've got to make the catches and it didn't happen."
Credit Where Credit Was Due
Matt Gay missed a 51-yard field goal that he should have made, but the truth was that special teams, led by the great Joe DeCamillis, was not good; it was great. While there are no moral victories in the NFL, truth is still truth, and he asked Kubiak about how well they played.
"Yeah, I think that's been a standard throughout the year. Coach Joe [DeCamillis] and Tim [McConnell] and Marquice [Williams] do a phenomenal job, and that's a phase that we continue to rely on."
More Red Zone Inefficiency Evaluation
Kirk Cousins still leads the NFL in touchdown passes, but the 15-year veteran knows the red zone is an Achilles' heel for this team.
"I think it's really a team game, and we just got to all kind of do our part. I got to hit throws when they're there and there's just any number of things that come up. I think of the throw to Cody [White] on -- It was another fourth down. But I have to go back and watch, I felt like they matched Brock [Bowers] in the flat, and maybe if you give it to Brock, it's going to be a catch tackle. But does he able to break that tackle or lean forward for a first down?”
Cousins went deeper, explaining his thought process. “Those are the things that I don't know in real time. But I thought I'll work Cody one-on-one and then wish I had given him a ball that he could have maybe just stopped and gone up for, as opposed to running underneath it. So those are some plays that I think end up looming large at the end of the game."
Elephant in the Room
Ever since the Raiders selected the young man NFL executives ranked as the best NFL QB prospect in the last four years, Fernando Mendoza, questions have come up about when he will play.
That isn’t abnormal, and with the Raiders now riding a four-game losing streak, they will get louder. Cousins knew that coming in and addressed it head-on.
“It's really the same every day that it was in March or April. I mean, nothing changes in the sense that if I'm not the best option, then I don't want to be out there either. I want our football team to have the best chance to win games. And if the first OTA, if that had become apparent, I would have been the first one to say, 'Yeah, you can't play me.' So nothing changes and the organization will do what they feel is best.”
Cousins elaborated even more, “But I feel that Fernando's [Mendoza] done a great job and has a bright future ahead. I'm going to try to go out there and play as well as I possibly can, help us win, and give him a great example to learn from until he does go out there eventually."
Execution Is the Key
WR Jalen Nailor is a high-priced free agent that the Raiders desperately need to break out. He addressed the Silver and Black's lack of execution in plain terms.
"At the end of the day, it's all about executing the X's and O's. We just got to find a way to do that better and complement the defense or special teams. We got to play a whole complete game as a whole team."
The Play of Cousins
Ashton Jeanty may not have had a great night toting the rock, but the Rams and a poor OL performance had more to do with that than he did. Still, Cousins targeted him eight times, and he caught all eight.
Cousins is not the problem, and the sophomore RB bragged on the play of his veteran signal caller.
“He's just super detailed every single week. Obviously, he's been playing this game for a long time, but he also has the confidence in everybody who's out there, running routes, and he gives them the chance to go make plays. You see it week in and week out from him."
No Worries About that
This is not the Raiders of old. No one is holding their head down. Nobody is quitting; this team is angry, feisty, and hungry. Superstar Maxx Crosby made that abundantly clear.
"You've got to stay close together. The world is negative in general, the world, the media, all that. That's just part of it. Negativity is what sells, and the fanbase is going to obviously be very upset, and they have every right to be, but you can't feed into that. You can't feed into the negativity. You can't lose confidence in who you are because of noise. There's always going to be noise, good or bad, but you don't let that dictate who you are. You've just got to continue improving on a daily basis."
Leadership on Display
Nakobe Dean has been a terrific signing for this team, and he held no punches back when talking about his team and how to fix the losing streak.
"Most of it is all controllable; everything is controllable. Even if you making a play, you're not making a play. You got to control it. Just got to be real. It's a performing based league, got to perform. At this point, we know what we not good at as a defense, and we got to pick that up. And like I said, it starts with me."
"It starts with us being real with each other. I know I'm probably going to start holding guys way more accountable, which I feel like I already do. I guess it's another level that we need to take because it's not working right now."
Dean’s comments were telling, and he went into more detail on how to hold guys accountable.
"Just be real. Don't walk past nothing. No matter how small it is, it's some things that happen in the practice or throughout the week and the meeting, so that's kind of minuscule, but walking past nothing. If I see it from the coaching staff to the players, if I see it, I'm going to say my mind and speak on it without being a germ.”
But the veteran leader wasn’t done. He had plenty more to say:
“Just try to be real and make sure that I'm not the only one doing it; everybody's got to hold each other accountable. So, we're not going to walk past anything, no matter who it is." On if he has faith in teammates to hold each other accountable.”
But Dean hasn’t lost one bit of faith in his teammates. His comments are direct, blunt, and honest, but do not misconstrue them as disdain, distrust, or even disbelief.
"I got a lot of belief. I got a lot of faith in this team. We got a lot of great players. We just got to put it together. We got to play as a team. We got to play as one. We can't be all individual mercenaries out there.”
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