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Back-to-back wins for the Las Vegas Raiders have been secured by late game-sealing plays by the defense. Most recently, it was defensive linemen Maxx Crosby and Bilal Nichols who played hero for the team.
Las Vegas survived a late push by New England to come away with a 21-17 win Sunday, Oct. 15 from Allegiant Stadium to earn a second straight home win. In addition, this is the first time this season that the Raiders have scored at least 20 points in a game.
“That wasn’t a Picasso out there,” head coach Josh McDaniels said. “I don’t think anybody would misinterpret that [...] There’s nobody in this room that’d like for this to be more of a 20-point victory than me, I think I’m aging by the week but it is what it is – we’ll take them.”
McDaniels is now 3-0 as a head coach against Patriots head coach Bill Belichick including a 2-0 mark with the Raiders.
Overall, Las Vegas is now 3-3 after suffering a three-game losing streak earlier this season. Next week, the team will have a chance to go above .500 for the first time since Week 1 when it travels to Chicago for a date with the Bears.
Kickoff is scheduled for 10 a.m.
“Every week is a different week in our league,” McDaniels said. “You can win them all and you can lose them all if you don’t coach and play well enough. And if you coach and play well enough, you’re going to be right there competing with teams.”
With New England pinned at its own four-yard line, quarterback Mac Jones was sacked from his shotgun position by Crosby and Nichols for a safety and a four-point lead.
“We work it every single day,” Crosby said. “Getting off the ball and finishing and that’s what happened. Bilal had a great rush as well. There’s no better feeling than closing the game out, we talked about it last week and the week before.”
The defense had overcome giving up 14 second half points after a near shutout first half performance. With just under nine minutes left in the third quarter, the Patriots scored their first touchdown of the game.
In the fourth quarter, New England would make things interesting with a touchdown to cut the once 10-point lead down to two. Crosby was responsible for a roughing the passer call on 3rd and 7 that kept the drive alive for the Pats.
“We have a lot of guys playing and scrapping and clawing,” McDaniels said. “We gave some things up today, they were more in the middle of the game I think but we battled.”
Las Vegas was aided by a bounceback game from kicker Daniel Carlson, who uncharacteristically missed two field goals in last week’s win over Green Bay.
“I think we have the best kicker in the NFL,” McDaniels said. “To have that feeling week-in and week-out at practice, you watch him do his job and you come to the stadium on gameday knowing that if you need a big kick or something else – nobody talks about his placement on balls on the kickoffs or what he does in that regard to limit returns.
“Daniel is an elite player at his position. I have tremendous confidence in him regardless of the situation or what has happened in the recent past. I’d give him the ball 100 [times] out of a 100 with the game on the line.”
Carlson turned in four made field goals in four tries Sunday including a long of 37 while accounting for 13 total points. His effort was needed as the Raiders offense went 1-for-6 in the red zone.
“It’s not [just] one thing,” McDaniels said. “We’ve got to do a lot of things right down there. You have a couple of holding penalties that put you in 1st and 20 or 2nd and 20 so that’s obviously a difficult situation to be in. We missed some opportunities.”
Quarterback Jimmy Garoppolo would engineer a 16-play drive that elapsed over eight minutes of time of possession to open the game. That drive would end with a three-point field goal from Carlson.
Late in the second quarter, Garoppolo was tackled and would get up grimacing while favoring his back. At halftime, he would leave the stadium and head to a local hospital for tests.
“I know he left and everybody knows that he left,” McDaniels said. “They’re just doing tests, they’re just making sure that they take care of all of that stuff so I do not have an update on Jimmy.”
Backup quarterback and fellow former New England player, Brian Hoyer, stepped in for Garoppolo and would make his presence felt immediately. On his first drive, Hoyer would step up in the pocket and find rookie receiver Tre Tucker for 48 yards on a 3rd and 4.
The Raiders would start the game 7-for-11 on third downs.
“Having been there for the last seven years, I know a lot of times on third down they want to take away your best player,” Hoyer said. “That was something we were keyed in on so I was just waiting to see were they going to do that.”
Hoyer completed six of his 10 pass attempts for 62 yards while Garoppolo left the game with 162 yards on 14-of-22 passing with a touchdown and an interception. The latter now leads the league with eight interceptions this season.
While it remains unknown if Garoppolo will be able to go next week, McDaniels and company have seen all three quarterbacks on the roster play in the regular season including fourth round rookie Aidan O’Connell.
“In any situation, at any position, I think it’d be helpful,” McDaniels said. “To not only see them in preseason but see them in live action in a close game with Brian today and Aidan in LA. So that’s helpful, I’m hoping for a healthy quarterback room in general.”