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A walk-off touchdown in overtime helped the Las Vegas Raiders pick up their third win of the year and the second against the Denver Broncos.
Las Vegas stunned Denver, 22-16, Sunday, Nov. 20 from Empower Field at Mile High, securing a regular season sweep over their divisional rivals.
“Just a typical division road game,” head coach Josh McDaniels said. “Really proud of our team, [it] hung in there. [To] get the ball back there with about a minute and something left. We were able to make a couple of big plays there.”
With two of the team’s three wins this season coming against the Broncos, 13 of McDaniels’ 14 career wins as a head coach have either come against Denver or leading Denver. Overall, he is now 14-24 as a head coach.
“I’m happy for our team,” he said. “This was never about me.”
Earlier this week, team owner Mark Davis gave McDaniels an additional vote of confidence in his first year as the team’s head coach despite being five games under .500 at the time of statement.
Moreover, the victory gave the team its first road win in six attempts this season. Now with a 3-7 overall record, Las Vegas is third in the AFC West and currently sit two games in the win column behind the Los Angeles Chargers.
Another road matchup looms ahead for the Raiders as they travel to Seattle for a date with the Seahawks. That game is scheduled for Sunday, Nov. 27 with kick-off slated for 1:05 p.m.
Quarterback Derek Carr went 68 yards through the air on back-to-back plays in overtime to steal a victory on the road.
The former was a 33-yard strike to tight end Foster Moreau that got the team into Denver territory. The latter of which went 35 yards to receiver Davante Adams for the walk-off touchdown, his second score of the day.
“Well, I knew I was wide-open,” he said. “I just said, ‘Look I just have to go up in the air.’ Really, it happens slow but it happens fast [so] it wasn’t really a whole lot of thinking. It was just lock-in on the ball and make a play.”
Adams’ game-winning snag was only his second reception post-halftime after putting up monster numbers in the first half.
With more than half of the third quarter gone, Adams hauled in a 12-yard reception to eclipse the 100-yard plateau. That marked the third straight game where he’s racked up triple-digit receiving yards.
In the first half, Adams reeled in three catches of 20 yards or more as well as putting Las Vegas on the board with their first score of the game. He finished with 141 yards on seven catches and two touchdowns.
Adams now has 10 touchdowns on the year, the most of any other receiver in the NFL.
Carr had his second 300-yard passing game of the season and his first since Week 3 against Tennessee. He went 23-for-37 with 307 yards and two touchdowns.
“I’ve always loved those moments,” he said. “That’s what I dreamed of as a kid. You dream of having a chance – we’ve had some chances and sometimes you don’t get them done [...] But those moments are NFL football and it's what you live for.”
Late in the fourth quarter, Carr led a drive that included three straight passing gains of seven, 21 and 43 yards to ultimately set up the game-tying field goal.
“There’s a lot of things that Derek does well,” McDaniels said. “He’s been in the game a while. Whatever the situation has been, it doesn’t seem to rattle him at all. To go take the field with 1:40, he asked me specifically, ‘What are you thinking here?’ I said, ‘We probably need two chunk plays.’”
That 43-yard completion went to running back Josh Jacobs, for the longest catch of his career, on a night where he burned the Broncos yet again. Jacobs accounted for 160 yards from scrimmage including 109 yards on 24 ground touches.
In two games against Denver this season he has accumulated 253 yards and two touchdowns. In seven career games against Denver, Jacobs has picked up four 100-yard rushing nights.
“They played a lot of five people at the line of scrimmage,” McDaniels said. “I think they do a phenomenal job on defense, they really do. That’s why they’re ranked first in the league. They changed it up a little bit on us.”
The defensive and special teams units had storylines in the Sunday win as well.
Defensive end Maxx Crosby added two sacks to his season total for a sum of 10. Las Vegas, as a team, has 12.
“All over the field,” McDaniels said. “Effort, great leadership this week. He was pursuing [Denver quarterback Russell Wilson] as much as he could in the pass rush. I thought he was really active at the point of attack in the run game and actually ran some plays down from behind.”
In addition, kicker Daniel Carlson had his third-longest consecutive field goals streak snapped at 41 when he missed a 46-yarder in the first quarter.
He’d bounce back and drill his three other tries on the night including the game-tying kick near the end of regulation as well as a 57-yard that now represents his career-long.